


Murder in Yogtowers

by ThePrettiestOfLights



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: A lot of blood later on, Death, Gen, I'm so so sorry, So much death, Swearing, dead bodies, missing people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-06-09 11:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 27,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6904117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePrettiestOfLights/pseuds/ThePrettiestOfLights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Simon has a "great" idea, the Yogs are forced to move into a tower together until they stop blowing each other up (Cough Cough Duncan Cough Cough). However, as usual, things don't go to plan. Soon, people start turning up dead, and everyone is suspicious of everyone, even Parv, who definitely has nothing to do with it. Things slowly start getting out of hand, and people fear for their lives. Now forced to work together after god knows how long apart, can the remaining Yogs work out what the hell is going on?<br/>(Uses the headcanon that Hannah and Duncan are siblings because I can).<br/>Set in Minecraftia</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Simon has an idea

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fan fiction on this site, so it probably won't be very good! Enjoy it anyway!  
> I was trying to write a completely different thing, but I got really angry with it and thought "Goddamnit, I wish I could kill them all!" And this happened.  
> I'm very, very sorry.

"I've had an idea!" exclaimed Simon as he burst through Lewis' office door. Lewis nearly spilled the tea he was drinking over an important 'Government' contract, but managed to avoid such a disaster.

"SIMON!" Lewis yelled angrily.

"Sorry friend." Simon shuffled his feet awkwardly. "But I've had a really good idea which I need to tell you right now."

"So, is this a Simon idea, or a reasonably thought through idea?" asked Lewis, setting down his mug on his desk before he had another near disaster.

"I definitely didn't just come up with this." Simon laughed. "So you know how there was the whole 'Duncan blew up Rythian and Zoey's castle and Zoey nearly _died_ _'_ thing a little while ago?"

"Yes, it nearly blew the entire Yoglabs missile scheme." Lewis smirked at his own stupid joke.

"Well, I though maybe we should gather everyone up and make them live together for a while, until they learn to appreciate everyone and  _not_ try and kill each other. I think it would teach teamwork and friendliness" Simon seemed rather pleased with this sudden brainstorm, as he was with most of his ideas.

"Rythian, Duncan and Sjin, all in the same building, bickering constantly? Hannah and Kim would throw them all off the roof after three days, even Duncan. And aren't the Hats having a war with Kim and Duncan anyway?" Lewis had already decided it wouldn't work.

"A  _very_ minor war, which I'm sure this project will prevent! Come on, Lewis! What's the worst that could happen?" Simon was smiling so wide it was almost, no, definitely, creepy.

"All out nuclear war, a lot of dead people and Ridge going mad with power again?" Lewis suggested.

Why are you so pessimistic? Please? Sjin and Ross can build the place, Martyn can do the farm, and Strife and Duncan can do all sorts of science-y stuff! I promise I won't let anyone near any weapons of mass destruction, and we can have the penthouse!" A penthouse? Why didn't he say that before?

"Fine, but you have to round up Hat Films and Ridge. And Strife, he won't want me anywhere near his place. And Notch  _knows_ where Rythian, Zoey and Tee are." Lewis had a horrible feeling he'd regret this. And oh, how right poor Lewis was.


	2. 'Harmless' Pranks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Tower is built, the farm is planted, and everyone is about to move in. Everything seems fine.  
> Until it doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People seemed to like my first chapter, so here's chapter two, because I finally finished writing the damned thing!  
> Also, tiny amount of Parvill in this one (Because, you know, Parvill) but it's not the main focus, do not worry my friends!

Strife really wasn't sure why he'd agreed to this. He didn't like leaving his base for long periods of time, but at least Parvis was with him, not back at the base destroying stuff and getting blood everywhere. He'd taken everything he would need (and a few things he didn't), to the point where Parvis had teased him for being 'over-prepared'. Strife retorted by pointing out he had his blood altar packed into his inventory, which silenced the blood stained man for most of the journey to the location they'd been told to go to. Parvis seemed to be thinking, which Strife found strange. Parvis rarely thought about anything other than Dota.

"So, remind me why we're going to this place? I wasn't listening the first four times." Parvis asked after an unnatural amount of silence.

"I've explained it to you five times, actually." Strife corrected. "Simon had an idea at some point last month about stopping wars or something like that. He thinks locking us all in a tower will make us become friends. More likely, Rythian will slaughter Duncan and Sjin, Kim will slit Hat Films' throats in their sleep, Zylus and Daltos will have some form of pool-based battle, Ravs will get everyone drunk, and Ridge will go mad with power. We'll be long gone by then, though. I'm not sure why Lewis agreed to it. Anyway, it will be fun while it lasts." Strife checked his map quickly to make sure they were going the right way.

"And we get our own floor in this tower, right?" Parvis was very interested, it seemed.

"Yes. We have one between the both of us, the Blackrock lot have one, the Flux Buddies have one, I think Ravs and Panda got the basement..." Strife continued to list people who were going to be there, but Parvis had stopped listening. There would be a lot of people there, but it was a very big place...

* * *

Zylus had to admit, he was very excited. He did have to share a floor with Daltos, but Panda would stop them killing each other, and Nilesy might be able to deal with the whole "Who the hell owns this Goddamned pool?" matter. Ravs had snuck a ton of alcohol into the building, somehow getting it past Hannah and Zoey and into the basement. Sjin and Martyn had set up a farm so they had plenty of food, and there was a pool which were owned by everyone, so Zylus might actually get a chance to go swimming without getting an iron sword in the face. Lewis had been complaining about not getting the penthouse despite being promised it. Martyn and Toby had insisted they needed it because the plants they had up there needed a lot of sunlight. Zylus was 95% sure they had their own climate by now.

Maybe it would actually be fun.

Maybe...

* * *

Toby was sure he'd been given the worst hiding place on purpose. Parv reckoned that if Strife found Toby, he might not hurt him, whereas he would definitely at least break Martyn's ribs, and would probably wring Parv's neck before tossing him out of the window. Toby could see the logic in this, but wasn't exactly sitting reassured crouched behind the row of machines. However, he had the best view of the door they'd set the bucket water on top of. This would either be a roaring success, or it would end with three deaths and a very angry Strife.

Toby heard Strife walk out of the elevator at the end of the hall and held his breath. Strife called out to Parv, who was hiding in a cupboard at the back of the room. He was slowly getting closer to the door with the bucket on top.

"Parvis?" He was in the Blood Altar room now

"Alex?" Strife was very, very close.

"Par- WHAT THE- AARGH!" Strife opened the door and the bucket fell on top of him, drenching him as the bucket thumped to the floor. Everything he needed to talk to Parv about had gone from his mind. Toby stifled a laugh, but suddenly felt extremely unsafe behind the small generator.

"PARVIS I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL KILL WHOEVER WAS INVOLVED IN THIS! THAT IS A _FUCKING PROMISE_!" Strife started flinging open cupboards. He hadn't even thought about checking where Toby was hidden. He didn't notice Martyn exiting the cupboard he'd been hiding in, leaping out of the window and climbing into Sips' bedroom, before wandering back out to his farm. Toby was sneaking between machines, slowly creeping towards the door. Parvis had no such luck. Strife swung open the cupboard he was hiding in, and Parv sprawled to the floor. Toby took his chance and bolted for the door. Strife saw him, but let him go. Toby had likely been dragged into this, he didn't deserve Strife's wrath. Parvis, however, did.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL _FUCK_ PARVIS?" Strife yelled, pinning the taller man down with his foot.

"See, this wasn't actually my idea, Martyn-" Parv began, but was cut off by Strife digging his foot into his neck.

"I'll let you off this time, Martyn and Toby too, but if this happens again, I will kill all three of you and feed you to the altar, mark my words." Strife moved his foot away from Parv and he sat up.

"You know, you're really cute when you're angry." Parv said, which earned him a kick in the ribs and a slammed door. Parv laughed. He wasn't dead, and the prank had been a success. 

Strife searched around for a towel. Parv was normally infuriating, but he'd gotten worse in the month they'd lived at the tower, and Martyn and Toby being here meant he had companions to help him pull off his stupid pranks. This was the fourth "Bucket of water over the door" prank they'd pulled (They had gotten Sjin, Benji and Zylus before), but this was the boldest they'd been with their targets, Strife threw his atomic disassembler onto his bed, found an orange towel and attempted to dry his blonde hair off. He heard Parv get into the elevator and leave, probably yo find Martyn and Toby to inform them of the pranks success. Strife became distracted with finding a new set of clothes, so he didn't notices someone slip into the room. He didn't even sense anyone behind him until they'd stuck a knife straight through is back into his heart.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, isn't that interesting?  
> But who would want Strife dead (Actually, quite a few people, but whatever)?


	3. The Search for Strife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one is sure where Strife is, but Parvis insists he's just wandered off.  
> Hat Films aren't so sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's my birthday today, so I'm (probably) going to give you TWO chapters today!  
> As always, thank you so much for reading!  
> Alternative chapter title: TPOL doesn't understand dinosaur anatomy and likes making height jokes (despite being 5'2)!

Everyone was very confused by Strife's sudden disappearance. Parv, Martyn and Toby though he'd wandered off into the forest to try and calm down after their supposedly 'harmless' prank, which they still insisted on pulling on people. The Hat boys weren't so sure. They didn't know Strife too well, but they were sure he wasn't the sort to go into the woods without someone with him, no matter how angry he was. After a bit of investigation (or they just asked people outright), they found Zoey, Tee and Kim felt the same way.

"Strife never goes near the forests, as far as I know. If anything, he would have locked himself on his floor and atomic-disassembled anyone who tried to talk to him." Kim said. They had all met on the Hats floor, leaving Duncan and Rythian to plot each others demise in peace, although Kim had made Duncan promise not to blow anything up while she was away.

"Tee has been watching the exits and entrances the entire time we've been here, for... security reasons." Zoey glanced between Kim and the Hats quickly. The Hats seemed mildly offended, Kim pretended not to notice. "He's checked who's coming in and out, and Strife only left once, about an hour before Parv drenched him. He came back later on with some stuff and went up to his floor. Unless he's used Ravs secret basement entrance, which Tee can't see from up here, and I doubt it because I assume you only know about it because I just told you, or Strife's found another way out, which I also doubt because I have X-ray vision now, and I found no other exits." Zoey tapped her visor idly. "He'd still in the building."

"What if he teleported?" Trott ventured. "I mean, I'm sure a scientist like him would have some sort of teleportation device." He was leaning against a counter, and hadn't said much up until now.

"If you'd been listening in the original meeting when we got here, you'd know that all teleporting and flying, unless it's important, by magic AND science is banned mate. We had our teleporters taken away from us, remember? No one can teleport, unless you're Rythian, apparently." Smith answered, glaring at Zoey.

"He can't help it, it's part of his blood." Zoey always jumped to Rythian's defence. She sounded very calm, despite the insult. Tee growled, baring his teeth.

"Alright children, you're scaring little Quim." Ross grinned, and Kim just rolled her eyes.

"It doesn't matter. The only logical conclusion here is Strife is still in the building. Either he's hiding, or someones hiding him." Kim tried to think of all the hiding places she'd found (She had become involved in a very intense Hide and Seek competition with Nilesy, and she decided to scout out some locations before the next round) that could logically fit Strife. Or Strife's body. Kim pushed this thought out of her mind. He wasn't dead. That wasn't allowed. If anything, her and Duncan should be the ones to kick his ass and nuke the ever-loving shit out of him and Parvis.

Zoey's eyes widened. "Someone's... hiding him? You don't really think he's dead, do you? Simon said we'd all be safe here..." Tee put his paw (Do dinosaurs have paws? Sure) on Zoey's shoulder, which appeared to calm her slightly.

"He's not dead, Zoey. He can't be dead, we would know, Parvis would know. Why is he so chill about this whole thing? His friend is missing." Ross said. He considered calling Strife Parv's  _best friend_ , but that didn't seem right.

"Mate, this is the same Parvis who is into Blood Magic. He's probably not thinking too much into it." Smith stood up and walked towards the window opposite Tee. He could see a few people on the farm, but he couldn't make out any specific features. Tee started to sign to Zoey (Tee is a law defying dinosaur, he can do sign language) and Zoey translated for him.

"Tee says "We should search each floor, see if we can find him. Kim and Ross can start with the basement, Me and Zoey can start from Duncan's floor, and Smith and Trott can start with Martyn and Toby's jungle." Everyone agreed, except Kim who didn't really wanted to be stuck with Ross, and Ross didn't want to leave the other Hats, but after some guilt-tripping from Zoey, and Tee pointing his bow directly at Ross' face, they agreed.

Ross and Kim headed down to the basement, intending to trick Ravs using alcohol as Daltos and Zylus were outside somewhere, and Panda was up on Nilesy and Hannah's floor. Ravs was, unsurprisingly, slightly drunk when they got down into the basement, so it didn't take Ross long to get him to pass out. When he was fast asleep, Ross joined Kim on 'Operation: Search for Strife' (A name created by Zoey). Kim was going through Daltos' stuff, Ross doing the same in a different room, when she heard a loud, blood-curdling scream from above ground. Kim ran out, not checking on Ross or Ravs, who was still passed out on the sofa. She ran up the basement stairs and burst through the front doors of the tower to see half of the Yogs standing outside, the rest of them were running down the stairs or in the elevator behind her. She spotted Duncan and Hannah standing a short distance to the left of the door. She couldn't see anything over the crowd due to her height, so she walked over to them.

"Hey, what the hell is going on?" Kim asked. She still couldn't see anything. Duncan said nothing, just continued staring over Zoey's head.

"They found Strife." Hannah answered, giving Kim zero reason for the horrific scream she'd heard.

"They found him? That's good, right?" Kim tried standing on her tiptoes, but Tee was in her way. Bloody dinosaurs, why did they have to be so damn big?

"I never said they found him alive. You can see better from over here, but there isn't a lot to see." Hannah moved to the side so Kim could stand between her and Duncan. Kim still couldn't see Strife properly, but she could see the scene better now. Parvis was sat next to Strife, rocking back and forth and was likely the one who screamed. Strippin was trying to drag him way, which he succeeded in after a while. Once Parv had moved, Strife came into full view. Kim felt a pang of sadness as she saw him lying on the ground. There was no blood, he looked like he could be sleeping. His blonde hair was messy, and there was a tear in the knee of his trousers. Kim hadn't been close with Will, and she couldn't even begin to imagine what it was like for Parv, but that didn't stop her wanting to cry.

Ridge flew down from wherever he'd been hiding above everyone else and landed next to Strife's body. Kim assumed he was looking for a cause of death. He didn't look like he'd been shot, stabbed or blown up by a mob or human; there was no blood. Poisoned? No, Strife didn't eat anything from the farm, only stuff he'd made or grown himself. Paranoia. Cursed? Quite a few people did magic, Parv, Rythian, Hannah, Nilesy, Smith, even Kim and Duncan, but none of them had anything against Strife that would lead them to curse him so badly he would die, not intentionally at least. Even if the Hats wanted him dead, they would make a show of it, with nukes and whatever. Rythian was more okay with science now, and Strife had stopped insulting magic at every opportunity, so it probably wasn't him. And Hannah and Nilesy? They were neutral about everything, refusing to get involved in any of the others drama. It had only been a day since he disappeared, so it wasn't starvation or dehydration, although he did look rather thin. Kim was snapped out of her train of thought by Ridge shouting.

"WHAT THE FU- PARVIS!" Ridge was backing away from Strife's body, looking mortified. Parv looked up from where he was sitting, sobbing, very confused and upset. Ridge turned and stormed over to him, suddenly looking like he wanted to blow him off the face of the earth.

"Parvis, can you explain to me why Strife doesn't have any  _FUCKING BLOOD?_ " Ridge was towering over him, to the point where Kim couldn't actually see Parvis anymore. She heard quiet "What the fuck?"s and "Oh my Notch"s from various people, and a "Oh fuck  _this_." from Nilesy before he went back the building, taking a crying Zoey with him. Kim looked over at Strife, and realised why he was thin as anything. No wonder there was no blood on him. There was none  _in_ him.

"Ridge, what the hell are you on about?" Strippin stepped between Strife and Parv. Strippin was shorter than Ridge, but tried his best to intimidate him. "What do you mean, 'No blood'? Even if he doesn't have any blood, why would Parv kill his best friend and just leave him out here? He's a blood mage, not a flipping maniac." Strippin glanced back at Parvis, "Okay, he is a bit of a maniac, but that's not the point." Ridge stepped back from him, ran his hand through his hair and said something Kim couldn’t quite hear, as she'd been tapped on the shoulder by Trott.

"Hey Quimbo, where's Ross?" He asked. Smith was standing behind him, but seemed more interested in Ridge and Strippin's conversation.

"Uh?" Kim couldn't remember Ross following her out of the building, or seeing him at all after Ravs had passed out. "I don't know, haven't seen him since I've been out here. I haven't actually seen for nearly an hour. Why?" Trott's eyes widened in horror, and he said a string of curse words, some of which weren't in English, before running out in front of the crowd.

"HAS ANYONE SEEN ROSS IN THE LAST HOUR?" He yelled, waving his arms to get everyone's attention. Everyone turned to look at him, looking confused and, in some cases, utterly terrified.

"I saw him go into the basement with Kim." Martyn said, standing by the cow pen with Toby. "I was looking for Hannah." He added, as if someone was accusing him of something.

"I saw him leave the basement, even talked to him." Said Sips. "He said Smith had sent him a message, something about Trott hurting himself." Sips looked uncaring about the whole thing, but appeared to be slightly concerned about Sjin, who was sitting on the floor next to the sheep pen hugging his knees.

"I never sent him a message. Matter of fact, I lost my communicator a couple a days ago. I reckoned Strife nicked it, actually, after I, uh, 'borrowed half his iron supply." Smith commented, having moved past Kim.

"It wasn't Strife who took your communicator, it was me." Trott said, pulling it out of his lab coat pocket and handing it to him. "Thought you deserved it, seeing as you're a dickhead."

"I think we need an alibi for everyone for the last hour or so. I can vouch for Nilesy and Panda." Hannah had a habit of becoming "Detective Rutherford" in these sorts of situations. Panda nodded.

"Well, Ravs is passed out, which is  _entirely_ Ross' fault by the way, and I was in the basement. I don't have any proof of that, though." Kim added casually.

"Me and Lewis were both on our floor. We could hear Ridge shouting about something, so he was definitely there the whole time." Simon' helmet was askew, and he looked like he'd run a mile in five minutes. Kim assumed he'd taken the stairs

Bebop put up his metal arm. "I was with Ridge."

"Me and Benji were working on the rail, and we could see Martyn, Toby, Sjin and Sips on the farm." Strippin replied.

"Me and Daltos were in the common room." Zylus said. "I swear we weren't fighting... again."

"Zoey and Tee were on my floor. Zoey disappeared for five minutes at some point, but not long enough to get down here, put Strife there and get back up unnoticed." Duncan said as Tee nodded in agreement.

"Me and the walrus were in the garden centre- I mean Martyn and Toby's fucking jungle. Seriously guys, do you need that many plants?" Smith was leaning against a wall again.

"What about you Rythian? Where were you?" asked Sjin.

Rythian shrugged. "I was on my floor, trying to work out a sound-proofing spell. Did you hear the explosion about five minutes ago?" A few people nodded. "Yeah, that was the spell backfiring." Duncan snorted, and Rythian shot him a death glare.

"I was trying to work out the best place to put a tripwire. I wouldn't suggest using your front door, Sirs." Parv stood up as he said this, glaring angrily at Ridge.

"So, everyone kind of has an alibi, although a few of them are questionable at best. Who found the body?" Hannah had pulled a clipboard out of backpack she had with her, and was scribbling furiously. Nilesy had come back outside, with Zoey trailing behind him. She stood next to Rythian, who put his arm around her.

"I did." Martyn stepped forward. "One minute he wasn't there, the next he was just lying on the ground. We heard the explosion just as I saw the body. I only noticed because Sips left the gate open and the chickens got out. I called the others over and sent out a message to Parv and Ridge."

"Right, so, basically, no one could have done it, no one _wanted_  to do it, and the only person who could have drained all his blood was Parv, his best friend." Hannah sighed, put her clipboard in her backpack and threw her hands up. "On top of that, we have another missing person. Fan-fucking-tastic."

"Okay." Lewis waved a long arm to get everyone's attention. "I'm enforcing a curfew. No one is allowed outside once it gets dark. Everyone goes out in pairs or groups, and any suspicious activity is reported to me, Simon or Detective Rutherford." Hannah smiled.

Kim looked at her watch, which was completely covered in flux again. It was nearly dinner time. She hadn't realised how hungry she was until now. She grabbed Duncan's arm quickly before he could get away from her.

"Promise me you won’t go wandering off, or get yourself killed?" Kim asked.

Duncan smiled. "Don't worry, I promise, as long as you promise. So, what do you think's going on?" He stuffed his hands into his lab coat pocket.

"I don't know. Vampire? But how did it get here, and why did it just leave the body in broad daylight? It must be one of us, but we all have alibis, and no one really hated Strife enough to do something like that. And why did they wait a month? Or kill him in here, when everyone is in the same place, instead of at his base where it's only him and Parvis? I don't know." Kim wandered into the common room and went on the hunt for noodles. Duncan went to sit with Lewis and Simon. Everyone was there, eating or making food, talking, but there was no laughter, no smiling. Parv was actually crying, alone in the corner. After she'd found her noodles, she made two bowls, and slowly headed over to him. Kim gently placed the bowl in front of Parvis and sat down next to him. He looked up at her.

"Eat." She said. "You'll feel better." Kim had never been very good at comforting people, but she knew if she was sad, noodles made her feel better. Parv looked at them, then at here, before picking up the noodles and starting to eat. He was halfway through them when he stopped and looked up at her.

"You haven't poisoned these, have you?" He looked deadly serious.

"Poisoned them? Why would I do that? If I had, I wouldn't have given them to you in the middle of the common room." Kim smirked, and Parv gave a small smile back.

They both finished their noodles, and Parv left with Martyn. People started going back to their own floors, and Kim and Smith were the last ones in the common room. Kim had been distracted with cleaning her watch (Flux really does get everywhere) and hadn't noticed it was only them in the room. He was sitting on one of the many sofas around the room, staring at the door. Kim instantly decided it wasn't normal, especially as Trott wasn't around, and he was completely silent.

"Are you okay, dude?" Kim asked, standing near him, but not close enough for it to be awkward or weird.

"I just keep expecting him to come through the door." Kim knew what he meant. "He'd be laughing. Telling me I'm an idiot for thinking he's dead, that it was just a joke and everything is okay..." Smith trailed off.

"I'm sure he's fine. He had quite a lot to drink when we were trying to get Ravs drunk, he's probably passed out under Ravs' bed or something stupid like that." That was a lie. Ross hadn't drunk anything, as far as Kim knew. He was clever enough to make Ravs think he'd been drinking, despite not taking a sip.

"Yeah, he'll be back tomorrow. Hungover as fuck and pissed off at everyone. Goodnight Kim." Smith got up and left. Kim stood in the common room for a few seconds after he left, and then remembered something.

"SMITH!" She shouted, running out of the room and to the elevator. Smith stopped and turned to look at her.

"Yeah?" He asked.

"In groups or pairs, remember?" She's stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for her floor.

"If this is a way to seduce me, it's not working." He smirked.

"Okay, can you go back to being sad? You were less annoying then." Kim said. Smith laughed, and the elevator arrived at his floor.

"Goodnight, my small, fluxy friend." He said before stepping out. Kim rode up to her floor, and went to bed that night felling like she'd done some sort of good, despite the lie.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as an extra bit of information, this is the layout of the tower, just to make our lives easier.  
> Basement: Zylus, Daltos, Panda, Ravs  
> Ground Floor: Common Room, Kitchen, Main Lobby  
> Floor 1: Sips, Sjin  
> Floor 2: Strife, Parvis  
> Floor 3: Hannah, Nilesy  
> Floor 4: Rythian, Zoey, Tee  
> Floor 5: Ross, Smith, Trott  
> Floor 6: Duncan, Kim  
> Floor 7: Strippin, Benji  
> Floor 8: Ridge, Bebop  
> Floor 9: Lewis, Simon  
> Floor 10: Martyn, Toby  
> Thank you very much for reading! And did you get the Harry Potter reference?


	4. Watson and Holmes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannah and Nilesy do some detective work.  
> Well, Hannah does, Nilesy gets distracted easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember the second chapter I promised? I remembered!  
> I'm going on holiday tomorrow for a week, so I won't be able to update, sorry!  
> Also, this chapter is completely harmless and includes no death or sadness!  
> Also LYNDON AND MR OWL!!!

Hannah set up a large whiteboard in her Witchery room. Every good detective had a whiteboard, she told herself. Even Sherlock Holmes had one, just inside his head instead of in his house. Nilesy had helped her pin up all the suspects plus a picture of Strife's body before he got distracted by Lyndon, who was winding around their legs and generally being in the way.

"You are a terrible Dr Watson." Hannah said, writing various names and information under each picture.

"Dr Watson? Excuse me, Hannah, I'm obviously Sherlock. I've even got a very professional hat." Nilesy was wearing a Sherlock hat, and he looked absolutely ridiculous. Hannah burst out laughing.

"No, I'm Sherlock, and you have to do as I say. Them's the rules." She turned back to the whiteboard and folded her arms. "So, the only people we have without a 100% solid alibi for when the body was placed is Kim, Ross, Rythian and Parv, and Kim, Ross and Rythian have alibis for when we think Strife disappeared. Ridge said he had a single stab wound to his back, straight through his heart. That's where the blood was drained from. Kim is far too short to make a wound at that angle, and would never have carried his body, Ross has a very solid alibi for when he disappeared, Rythian pretty much attaches himself to Zoey when he's not doing his magic, and the explosion from his floor is exactly when Martyn thinks the body was placed confirms he was there. Parv has no solid alibi for either incident, and is perfectly capable of draining blood, he was the only one who Strife trusted so he would have been able to sneak up on him, and he's perfectly capable of carrying Strife around. But, he was- is- Strife's best friend, and wouldn't ever hurt Strife on purpose." Hannah sighed.

"So, in summary, no one did it." Said Nilesy, a black cat sleeping in his arms.

"Pretty much. I don't understand, why would anyone want to hurt Strife? He's a bit of a dick, yeah, but he's never actually hurt anyone. Honestly, I was expecting Rythian to kill Sjin or Duncan if any murder was going to happen." Hannah flopped down in a chair and looked down at her communicator. She had three messages.

NanoSounds: I need some help with Circle Magic, can you do tomorrow after lunch? [20 minutes ago]

HybridPanda: Tell Nilesy to stop ignoring me. [45 minutes ago]

"Hey Nilesy. Stop ignoring Panda." Hannah said before continuing to read. 

djh3max: HELP ME! [2 hours ago]

"Holy shit, Nilesy, look at this." Hannah held up the communicator so he could see it. He went pale.

"Why did he send  _you_ a message after he'd disappeared?" Nilesy asked.

"I don't know." Hannah replied.

Nilesy seemed to have a realisation. "Can we... track where this message was sent from?"

"Oh my God, we can! Nice one dude." She slapped him on the back. "Okay, first thing in the morning, we get Lewis to track this message, okay?" Nilesy nodded in agreement and stretched his arms.

"Okay, bed sounds good. Night Sherlock Rutherford." Nilesy headed into his room and closed the door behind him. Hannah waited a few minutes before turning back to her whiteboard. Something was bothering her. Why were Kim and Ross in the basement anyway? The only person who was down there was Ravs, who was pretty drunk when when Zylus had given up trying to get him outside. And Kim had mentioned him passing out, and that it was Ross' fault. What the hell did that mean? The only way to know what they were doing down there was to ask Kim. Hannah checked to see if Nilesy was asleep, which he was, before getting into the elevator and heading up to Duncan and Kim's floor. She knocked on their door and Duncan opened it.

"Oh, hey Han. What's up?" His blonde hair looked slightly dishevelled, and his goggles were around his neck.

"Is Kim up here yet? I need to talk to her about something." Hannah was purposely vague, as something in the back of her mind suspected her brother. He wasn't above murder, but he hadn't actually blown anyone up recently, other than Kim or himself.

"No, she's still in the common room. What did you want to talk to her about?" Duncan asked.

"Oh, don't worry, it can wait until tomorrow. I'll see you later bro." Hannah turned around and pressed the elevator button.

"Goodnight, sis." And he closed the door.

Hannah met Strippin and Benji in the elevator and nodded to them. They acknowledged her, but didn't say anything. The elevator went up to their floor before going back down to hers. She sat down on her bed and Mr Owl flew down and landed on her knee, looking at her hopefully.

"You've had enough treats, you silly owl. Go and find some mice." Hannah opened the window and the owl flew into the night. She left it open so he could get back in later on. This did make the room go cold, but she just picked up another blanket and threw it over the bed. Hannah pulled of her boots, hat and put her knife, bow and communicator next to her bed before laying down. She started theorising about various things as she stared at the ceiling, trying to remember all the cop shows and detective dramas she'd watched that had this sort of death in it, and who the culprit had been. She didn't come up with much. She fell asleep at some point, thinking "If this is some sort of serial killer, who's next?"

* * *

 

The figure teleported into the room. They had to be quick and quiet, they couldn't wake Hannah, and they had to be gone by the time that retched owl got back. If they did wake her, or the owl came back too soon, everything would be ruined. The figure picked up the communicator they all carried in some form or another and deleted the message from Ross. Everything was fixed, and the figure would destroy Ross' communicator so he couldn't send anymore messages as soon as possible. Right now, they had a message to leave.


	5. Anyone But Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit starts hitting the fan, and Hannah and Nilesy interrogate Kim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back,  
> Back again,  
> TPOL's back,  
> Tell a friend.
> 
> Yes, I'm back from my holiday!  
> I'm going to post as much of this as I can in the next week, and then I have three more things planned, including the fic that inspired this one and a Teencast thing!  
> Also, sorry for making Toby's bit so sad, I swear it wasn't intentional!

Toby wasn't sure how he'd heard it. He was ten floors up for Notch's sake, and the amount of plants Martyn had around the place should probably absorb the sound from the rest of the building, but he'd heard it anyway. He'd been awoken at 7am by an unintelligible yell which had also managed to wake up everybody else in the building. Martyn had been out the door first, and didn't even bother with the elevator, just ran straight down the stairs. Toby was only a flight behind him, and when he looked down the middle of the spiral staircase, he could see at least five or six other people running down the stairs. When he got to the bottom, his lungs felt like they were on fire, he had a stitch, people were still yelling and Zoey was crying again. Lewis was trying to stop people from entering the common room, so Toby decided to sneak under his arms. He told Martyn before he did it, so he knew where he was. Martyn thought it was a good idea. Toby was quite short, and Lewis was very tall, so it wasn't very hard. No one even noticed him, but nobody ever did. He hid behind one of the sofas that wasn't against a wall, which was right next to the door, but not quite in view of anyone inside or outside of the room. He peeked over the sofa and saw Hat Films and Ridge in the room. Smith was sitting on a chair by a table with his knees drawn up to his chest, Trott was sobbing on the floor, and Ross' body was hanging above the table by a rope, all pale and thin. Ridge was at the other end of the room, staring out of one of the windows. 

"No, no, no, anyone but him, anyone but him." Smith was mumbling, rocking back and forth in his chair. Toby ducked back behind the sofa and out the door. Still, no one noticed him.

"It's Ross." Toby whispered when he was back next to Martyn.

"Thought so. I couldn't see any of the Hats out here, or Ridge. So that's Strife and Ross now, what the bloody hell is  _happening?_ " Asked Martyn. He was tall enough to see over most of the crowd, but Hannah was in the way. She wasn't wearing her owl hat and she looked quite weird without it. She seemed to get fed up with people shouting and Lewis being useless in general and pushed her way to the front.

"ALRIGHT SCRUBLORDS!" She yelled, "EVERYBODY GET LOST AND GO EAT OUTSIDE, THIS IS A CRIME SCENE NOW!" Everybody scattered almost instantly, including Toby and Martyn. Nilesy and Lewis stayed, considering they were the only people who weren't scared of Hannah to some degree. Although, Nilesy did consider taking off along with everyone else. Hannah was scary when she was angry.

"Thanks Han." Lewis said after everyone had fled.

"No problem. Did Kim go outside?" Lewis nodded. "Okay, me and Nilesy need to ask Kim some stuff, you can deal with the Hats, alright?" Lewis nodded again, before entering the common room.

"Right, yes talking to Kim. Can we eat first? I'm starving." Nilesy was walking towards the door already.

"I just need to grab my hat and my bow, I panicked and left them up there." Hannah patted her head; she felt strange without her hat. She only ever took it off to sleep and shower, it was pretty much part of her head at this point.

"Okay, cool, I'll make food, you'll get the hat. Could you feed Lyndon? Just give him some fish, it's bloody everywhere anyway." Nilesy continued towards the door, and Hannah got into the lift. She'd run down four flights of stairs, which didn't sound like a lot, but she had woken up two minutes earlier, and hadn't eaten since the night before. She decided that today was not a farming day or a witching day. It was a crime solving day. She fed Lyndon, grabbed her hat and bow, and went back outside. Nilesy had 'found' some bread and pork, which they ate before talking to Kim, who was sitting near the treelike playing with a baby penguin.

"Hello Kim!" Nilesy said brightly, sitting down next to her and patting the penguin gently.

"Hey guys, this is Billy." Kim tickled the penguin. "Duncan gave him to me."

Hannah sat down as well. "He's cute. Could I ask you something?" She brushed the hair that had managed to get out of her hat and into her eyes behind her ear.

"Uh, sure. What's up?" Kim cocked her head to the side.

"Why were you and Ross in the basement yesterday. You never explained after you'd given your alibi." Hannah knew in the back of her mind that Kim wouldn't have hurt Strife or Ross, but she just wanted to double check.

"Oh, um... promise me something first?" Hannah nodded. "Don't tell Duncan or anyone, okay?" Kim glanced around quickly, but no one was nearby.

"Why, what are you hiding?" Nilesy asked, tactful as ever.

"I'm not hiding anything, dickhead. I just, don't want Duncan to think I don't trust him or something." Kim didn't look either of them in the eyes.

"So your going to lie to him further and tell his sister instead. Sounds completely fool prove, nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan, not at all ever." Nilesy said, patting the penguin gently again.

"Shut up, Nilesy. Carry on, Kim." Hannah said.

"Well, after Strife disappeared, me, the Hats, Zoey and Tee were suspicious as to where he was. Zoey and Tee were 100% sure he was still in the building, so we decided to split up and search for him. We thought he was still alive and hiding somewhere, you know? So, we split up to try and search the tower. Tee assigned me and Ross to start with the basement, he and Zoey were checking out my floor, and Smith and Trott were up on Martyn and Toby's floor. Ravs was already drunk, so Ross just gave him more booze until he passed out. He was in Ravs room trying to find places Strife could be, and I got distracted going through Daltos' crap. He has a lot of cool stuff, but I swear I didn’t take anything. I didn't hear him leave, I only heard Parvis scream. I ran outside, didn't check on Ross or Ravs, and you know where I was from then." Kim was idly stroking Billy, and seemed to be lost in thought once she was finished. Hannah and Nilesy believed her, she had no reason to lie. They talked a bit about witchery stuff, and Hannah agreed to help Kim do some Circle Magic the next day, as long as Nilesy and Duncan weren't getting in the way and breaking things. Suddenly, it became very overcast, and a few minutes later it was pouring down with rain. Pretty much everyone was outside, so they all got completely soaked. After everyone and everything important had been brought inside, some people went to find towels while everyone else went into the common room. Ross' body had been removed, and the other Hats had gone. Hannah walked over to Lewis, and Nilesy spotted Zoey over in the corner. She'd taken off her visor, and was trying to dry it off with her sleeve. She was absolutely soaked, but Nilesy didn't remember seeing her outside. Maybe she was hidden in the Mushroom shelter she'd made by the farm, and she'd run inside after everyone else. It was a perfectly reasonable assumption. Rythian was nowhere in sight, so Nilesy sat next to her and put his feet up on one of the many coffee tables.

"Hello Zo, how's your day been?" he asked.

"Wet and sad. Rythian went to go find me a towel, because I'm not 100% sure if my visor is waterproof or not. My arm definitely is, so that's good. I like the rain, I just don't like being in it without warning or a coat." Zoey switched sleeves, but it didn't seem to dry the visor at all. She sighed. "Oh, but the rain is bad for the mushrooms. They like warm, dry places, like my cave. The red ones are better with rain, but the brown ones absolutely hate it." Zoey brushed some strands of red hair out of her blue eyes. Nilesy wasn't sure what she was on about, but he nodded in agreement anyway.

People came into the common room with piles of multi-coloured towels and started distributing them to their friends. Rythian didn't have one for Nilesy, so he asked Panda instead.

"Sure. I don't know where Zylus disappeared to, so you can have his." Panda handed Nilesy a light blue towel, which he took gratefully and tried to dry his hair off a bit. He felt bad, taking Zylus', but he could easily get another one. Nilesy glanced over at Hannah, and saw she had taken off her owl hat and put it on the radiator. Nilesy made a mental note to remind her incase she forgot it. He turned his attention to Tee and Ravs, who were in an intense round of The Lever Game. Zoey was commentating and keeping score, and Rythian was reading a Thauminomicon, occasionally looking and laughing at something Zoey said. After an hour of this, Daltos tapped Nilesy on the shoulder and asked;

"Have you seen Zylus?"

"Not since we came inside. Now I think about it, I didn't see him outside either. He's probably in the basement or something." Nilesy didn't see any reason to be concerned, Zylus had a habit of disappearing at random moments.

"I checked everywhere. No sign of the fucker. Do you think I should tell Lewis, or leave it?" Dalton asked.

You probably should mention it, because of what's going on." Nilesy said. Zylus was a bit of an idiot at times, but Nilesy liked him. He was quite fun to be around, and occasionally appreciated Nilesy's puns that everyone else groaned at.

"Okay, I will, thanks." Daltos went over to Lewis, and Nilesy turned his attention back to the Lever Game, which, as far as he could tell, Tee was winning again. The rain stopped after another 40 minutes, and people started going back outside or up to their floors. Nilesy and  Hannah went up to their floor, Hannah wanted to write down what Kim had said, and Nilesy was trying to figure out Golomancy. When they got into their floor, Hannah gasped and slapped her hand to her forehead.

"Oh my god, I forgot my hat!" She exclaimed.

"I know where it is, you put it one the radiator to dry off after we came in from the rain. I'll go grab it for you if you like." Nilesy didn't wait for an answer, and all he heard from Hannah was "Thanks dude!" before the elevator doors closed and he began his descent through the building. The elevator stopped on Strife and Parvis' floor, and Parvis got in. He looked deathly pale, and he had fresh blood on his trousers. Nilesy decided not to mention Strife or the blood, because he didn't want to deal with a crying/angry/murderous Parvis.

"Hey Parv, how's your day been?" He asked, as he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Better than yesterday. Well, not much better, someone else had died, but better." Parv scratched his arm.

"Yeah, it's not great, is it?" Parvis shook his head as the elevator doors opened. They both walked into the common room. No one was there. Nilesy picked up Hannah's owl hat from the radiator as Parvis opened a kitchen cupboard and started rummaging through it. The hat was made of animal skin (Probably not owl skin, but who knows?) and had a felt beak and eyes stitched onto the front of it. Hannah had said it was a birthday present from Duncan many years ago. Nilesy was surprised it was still intact at all, considering all the shit him and Hannah got themselves into. There was a window above the radiator, and when he looked up from the hat, Nilesy could see directly into the forest. No one was really supposed to be in the forest, because it was considered dangerous or something like that. That didn't stop Strife, but look where he ended up. It was bright daylight, closing in on midday, but Nilesy could barely see further than the tree line. He focused on the forest and saw something humanoid silhouetted in the trees. He watched it for a minute, before it dashed off into the trees, what appeared to be a cloak billowing behind it.


	6. Voices In The Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After last times cliff hanger, Nilesy, Hannah, Toby, Zoey and Tee go into the forest. It doesn't go very well.  
> Kim asks Ridge about some of his Demi-God perks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did someone say Zoathian? No? Oops...

Nilesy clutched Hannah's hat and ran to the elevator. It was up on Lewis' floor, and it would be quicker to use the stairs than to wait for it to come all the way down to him. Nilesy practically fell through the door when he got to his floor, scaring Hannah so much she dropped her book and pulled a knife on him. Lyndon hissed and hid behind a chair, and Mr Owl flew out a window.

"Nilesy! What's the matter? What did you do?" Hannah managed to grab her hat from him, and Nilesy explained what he'd seen, using wild hand gestures that nearly knocked over a few jars of Exhale of the Horned One. Hannah decided it was best to go into the forest to see if they could find anything, or traces of anyone. She sent out a mass message on her communicator to see if anyone was willing to come with her. Zoey, Tee and Toby agreed, and both Rythian and Martyn sent private messages asking Hannah to look after them.

The five of them set out into the forest an hour later. Tee had his bow, Toby and Nilesy had diamond swords, Zoey had a plasma gun on her arm and Hannah had her wand and an owl who was scouting ahead. Toby was shaking, and was becoming increasingly paranoid. Zoey was talking to him about a mushroom with the same name as him, saying he was one of her favourite mushrooms and he was a very good spy. Toby had a second-hand interest in plants from Martyn, so he was genuinely interested in what she was saying. After two hours of searching with no results, Nilesy made a terrible suggestion.

"We should split up; it would be easier to search then." He was sitting next to an old Greatwood tree, cleaning some zombie blood off his diamond sword. The canopy was so thick in the forest, mobs were everywhere,

"Hell no. Number one rule of any situation like this, you don't split up under any circumstances." Hannah had found an aura node, and had her back to everyone while she scanned it. Zoey nodded.

"No way are we splitting up, It's far too dangerous out here." Toby was watching Hannah's back. Tee roared quietly in agreement. Hannah and Nilesy debated it for a while longer, with no input from the others. 

"Oh come on guys, me and Hannah will go east, Tee, Zoey and Toby can go west, we'll circle around and meet back up. It'll be fine." Nilesy looked up and saw a skeleton aiming an arrow at Hannah, Nilesy jumped up and sliced its head off just after it shot, missing Hannah by about two metres. The skeleton collapsed onto the floor into a piled of bones.

"Toby! You useless shit. you're supposed to be on lookout! You let a skeleton nearly  _impale_  Hannah!" Nilesy started picking up some bones they could use for bonemeal on the farm. 

"Don't be so hard on him dude, I'm sure it was an accident." Hannah pulled herself up and turned to look at Toby, but he, Zoey and Tee were nowhere in sight. Hannah panicked. She tarted yelling their names in desperation.

"TOBY?! ZOEYA?! TEE?! WHERE ARE YOU?!" She grabbed her wand and ran through the forest in the direction they'd came.

"HANNAH, CALM _DOWN_! We can't find them by running blindly around the forest!" Nilesy grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him. She stopped and looked at him with tears in her eyes.

"I promised I'd look after them, I promised Rythian and Martyn I wouldn't let them out of my sight. I've failed them, what if they die? Rythian will  _kill me,_ I'll never be able to look Martyn in the eyes again. Everyone will hate us for dragging them out here." Hannah was clutching her wand to her chest. Mr Owl flew down from the trees and sat on Hannah's shoulder. He nibbled her ear gently in an attempt to calm her down.

"It's okay, we'll find them. I'm sure they're fine, we just have to stay calm and-" Nilesy was cut off by a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream, followed but a distant roar. There was only two people that it could be.

"ZOEYA!" They yelled simultaneously, before sprinting off in the direction of the scream, still yelling her name.

"HANNAH?! NILESY?! TEE?! HELP ME!" Zoey sobbed loudly, leading them both to her. They burst into a clearing, and saw Zoey pressed up against a tree crying.

"Zoey!" Exclaimed Nilesy, running over to her and pulling her into a hug. "Shhh, it's okay, I've got you now." Hannah looked around the clearing and gasped when she saw the main reason for Zoey's tear. Zylus' body was sitting up against a tree not far from where her and Nilesy had come into the forest. If they'd been ten feet to the left, they would have tripped over his legs. Tee came charging into the clearing, bow in hand, and ran over to Zoey.

"I'm okay, you daft dinosaur." Zoey pulled away from from Nilesy and patted Tee on his arm. She looked around the clearing, avoiding Zylus' body. She frowned and said,

"Hey, where's Toby? I thought he was with you guys." Hannah's eyes went wide.

"Oh fuck, oh fucking  _fuck_. TOBY?!  _TOBY?!_ ** _TOBY?!_** " She yelled, stepping away from the others and looking around the edge of the clearing frantically. "FUCKING SHIT WHERE THE FUCK  _IS_ HE?" Toby didn't come. Hannah continued to scream. Nilesy sent out a distress signal to everyone via his communicator. Tee tried to stop Hannah running out into the forest. Three minutes later, Rythian teleported into the clearing. He grabbed Zoey and pulled her into a hug.

"Zoey! Thank god you're okay." He said.

“I'm fine, Rythian. Hannah really isn't though." Hannah wasn't screaming anymore, just sobbing, curled up on the floor. Nilesy was going through Zylus' pockets, trying to find something, anything at all. All he had on him was a communicator, which was cracked and had small specks of blood on it. Nilesy was no doctor (which Hannah reminded him often), but he could tell he'd died the same way as Strife and Ross. He backed away from the body as Ridge landed.

"Jesus Christ, you guys came out far. All accounted for?" He asked, glancing over at Nilesy.

"I wish. We found Zylus, not alive, obviously, but we've lost Toby. And no sign of the cloaked bastard either." Nilesy sat down next to Hannah and started stroking her hair gently.

"The others will be here in an hour or so, judging by the way Martyn, Duncan and Lewis were running." Ridge said. "In the meantime, what happened? Nilesy just sent out a distress signal, no context, and Rythian and Duncan assumed Zoey and Hannah were dead, and Martyn couldn't get hold of Toby so he panicked, and now everyone is running through the forest."

Nilesy told them what happened.

"I thought I heard Rythian, out in the forest. He was whispering, but he sounded like he was hurt or something. I went out to find him, I was calling his name really loud so I'm surprised you guys didn't hear me. I heard him in this clearing, and I saw Zylus'. That's when I screamed." Zoey looked between everyone. She looked a bit guilty, like all of this was her fault.

"Then, why did Tee and Toby go?" Asked Rythian. He was still hugging Zoey.

Tee started signing. "Tee says 'I didn't see Zoey go, but I saw Toby go off into the forest. I followed him and tried to get him to go back, but he said Martyn needed his help. I left him when I heard Zoey scream. I thought he was behind me until Zoey pointed out he wasn't.'" Zoey translated.

"Mimics, or magicians skilled in mimicry, can replicate peoples' voices. You can usually tell if it's a person mimicking a voice though, they never quite sound right." Ridge said. "The only people I can think of who would be skilled enough to do voice mimicry are me and Rythian, maybe Bebop could do it electronically, but I don't think Rythian would mimic his own voice to lure Zoey out, and me and Bebop were at the tower. Proper mimics, however, can replicate voices perfectly. The problem is, mimics were wiped out years ago."

"Wiped out? By who, or what?" Nilesy asked.

"Me. I got fed up of them trying to eat me alive." Ridge walked over to Zylus' body and poked him with his foot.

"Oh, right. Why didn't whatever it was try and talk to me and Hannah?" Asked Nilesy, still stroking Hannah's hair.

"It takes the voice of whoever you trust the most. I assume you trust Hannah the most?" Ridge asked. Nilesy nodded as Hannah finally sat up. "Well that's why then. It couldn't take the voice of the person you trust the most because they were already talking to you."

"I heard Duncan." Hannah said suddenly, so suddenly that Nilesy jumped. "I could hear him saying something about Kim... being hurt, and that he couldn't help her. It was... really distorted, like static. I ignored it, I thought it was the aura node, or something. Can aura nodes even do that?" She brushed the hair out of her eyes, and stood up. Nilesy shrugged.

At that moment, seven Yogs burst into the clearing, scaring them so much that Tee shot an arrow into a tree. Lewis and Duncan ran over to Hannah and started fussing over her. Martyn asked where Toby was, and when he got his answer, he ran out into the forest, Parvis and Strippin running after him. Panda and Daltos walked over to Zylus and started to discuss how they were going to get him back to the tower. The rest of the Yogs arrived in the clearing within the next half hour, all out of breath and with stitches in their sides. Lewis held a meeting once Parv and Strippin had dragged Martyn back, and everyone else had calmed down.

"Alright people. We have three dead bodies, and a missing person. We need some semblance of a plan. Any ideas that  _don't_ involve all out nuclear war and/or more murders?" Lewis was standing on a tree stump, and everyone was sitting on the ground in the clearing.

"We search the forest in groups and try and find Toby. Big groups. It's not been long; he can't have gone far." Martyn suggested.

"Last time people split up, Toby got lost and everyone else nearly died. Splitting up is a terrible idea." Benji said.

“Toby's just a kid. He's probably terrified out there on his own, I don't think we should split up, but we should definitely try and find him soon." Hannah said. She felt guilty, although Martyn had insisted it wasn't her fault.

"Has anyone tried doing a heat scan to try and find him? Does Zoey have a heat scanner in her visor?" Smith asked, and everyone turned to look at Zoey.

"Oh yeah! I can do that. I don't know what the range is though." Zoey stood up, tapped her visor a few times and started to look around. "Let's see, nothing over there, that's a squirrel, that's probably a wolf. Hey, Tee is cold-blooded!"

"Zoey..." Rythian murmured.

"Oh, right, yes, Toby. I can't see anyone outside the clearing. But there are some owls over there if you want to see them, Hannah." Zoey tapped her visor again and sat back down next to Rythian.

"Okay, that's not good. I say we head back to the tower, and- Ridge what the hell are you doing?" Lewis asked. Ridge was drawing a circle in the dirt using magic not far from where everyone was sitting. He set it on fire.

"I have a link to everyone who lives in the area, except Rythian, Tee and Zoey because I have no idea where they live, I'm 95% sure Rythian doesn't sleep, and I'm not sure if it would work on a dinosaur." Ridge stared into the fire intently.

"What sort of link?" Asked Duncan.

"I can tell if someone is alive or not." Ridge waved a hand through the fire.

"And you didn't think to mention this earlier? Like, Strife earlier?" Asked Parvis, a hint of anger in his voice.

"I would have, but there was something very wrong. I was using the spell not ten minutes before Martyn found Strife. He was still alive. I stopped the spell because Bebop broke something. When Ross disappeared, he was definitely alive the night before Smith found him. I was using the spell until about the time Zoey said she walked off. That's when Zylus' life link went out. I was about to talk to Lewis when I got the distress signal. According to this, Toby is still alive." Ridge extinguished the fire.

"Okay. We head back to the tower. If Toby's still alive in the morning, we look for him. Deal?" Lewis asked. Everyone agreed and started leaving. Panda, Daltos and Ravs carried Zylus. Kim left Duncan and Hannah to walk with Ridge. She wanted to ask some important questions, and a two-hour walk seemed a better time than any.

"So, how does the whole link thing work? And how are you linked to me? I don't remember to agreeing to it. I don't know what Duncan got up to before I met him, but I don't think he would agree to whatever it is." Kim said as they walked. Ridge didn't really like teaching, but he liked Kim, so he decided to try.

"I broke into your house on Sjin's farm and made a link then. I made Duncan's after he'd passed out drunk once. I decided it was probably best for me to make the links, just in case something really bad happened. Something like this for example. Technically, no one ever agreed to the links, except for Hannah, because she caught me making one with Nilesy at two am and nearly gutted me with that knife she always keeps with her. It took me over an hour to convince her I wasn't trying to murder him, and to explain what I was actually trying to do. I'm pretty sure she never told him. I'm linked via my magic to everyone I’ve made the link to. I can check their vitals at anytime I want to, as long as I have the circle. I can only tell in a general sense where they are. For example, I know Rythian and Zoey live in the desert somewhere, and Toby is definitely still in the forest. I've also been tracking your and Duncan's flux, just to make sure. Try not to go into any heavily tainted areas, just a general warning." Ridge finished his short lecture and let Kim process what he just said.

"Oh. So, can you always tell someone's heartbeat and breathing and stuff? Or is it, like, a ranged thing?" Kim felt like she was being intrusive or annoying, but she hoped the 'I'm a useless-scientists apprentice and I want to know stuff about magic' thing would gloss over that. 

"As far as I can tell, it doesn't have a limit. It goes through dimensions, and on to different planets, so I'm pretty sure it's infinite." Ridge replied.

"Cool. Do you break into people's house often?" Kim asked.

"I used to do it a lot more than I do now. People became aware of it, so I stopped. It's fun, being invisible. You get to see all sorts of things." Ridge grinned.

"Have you broken into Panda Labs? Because Duncan loses things a lot, and I don't think it's a coincidence." Kim asked nervously. She didn't like the idea of people being in her house without her knowledge.

"Not recently. Your cat and the robot can sense me, so I've given up. I can't get onto the Evicted farm without an owl following me. Hannah thinks he goes on holiday, but I quite like Hoot, and the spectral pigs, so I kept them. Don't tell Nilesy or Hannah that, they'll kill me."

"I won't, I promise. Do you have any idea who could be doing this? Because me and Duncan are clueless." Kim saw a baby squirrel run up a tree, and resisted the urge to make an incredibly high pitched noise.

"I honestly don't know, I don't trust anyone, not even you. No offence." Ridge responded to the slight glare he got. "I don't think it's Hannah or Nilesy. They will do whatever it takes to protect each other and their friends, but I don't think they would go quite as far as murder. Strippin, Benji, Martyn, Panda, Daltos and Ravs aren't really the right sort, the Hats wouldn't hurt Ross, Zoey just _wouldn't_ , and Rythian has calmed down a lot since the BlackRock explosion. Sips and Sjin I'm not too sure about, Lewis and Simon are part of Yoglabs so I wouldn't put them above murder. Duncan? I don't know. I know you trust him, but I've known him a long time. He's done some shit, but I don't know if he would kill four people now. He's not done anything major since he met you. I wouldn't be surprised if Parvis had done this. He's a  _blood mage_ for Notch's sake. He reeks of dark magic. But, he wouldn't hurt Strife. The only person who isn't here is Minty, and she's been at the Captive Creeper the whole time. I don't know, it doesn't make any sense."

Kim thought for a moment, before saying something she almost instantly regretted. "What about Bebop?"

Ridge glared at her. "Bebop is always with me. He hasn't done shit." They walked the rest of the way back in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed writing Kim and Ridges interaction. I hope you enjoyed reading it!


	7. When The Lights Go Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the lights go out, things go wrong.  
> Hannah starts making accusations, and Duncan isn't happy about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this is a short one, it had to be for... reasons...

Toby's body turned up the next day, not too far from where Strife was found. Simon found him. No one talked about it. They didn't see any point. Toby was everyone's friend to some degree, and no one wanted to upset each other.

Rythian sat in the mushroom cave with Zoey to try and distract her. Rythian hadn't really spoken to Toby much, but he was a good kid, and Zoey had liked him, so he felt sorry for him and Martyn. Zoey was taking to a small group of brown mushrooms, which she claimed were called Tom, Adrian, Tom MK II, Colin, and Matt. Rythian had stopped listening at some point, and had started watching Sjin running around the farm, feeding the animals and tending to the crops. Suddenly, Zoey stopped talking to the mushrooms, stood up and said;

"Matt said Agent Harry is trapped in a hole, I need to go and rescue him. Stay there, I'll be right back." And she ran out.

Rythian didn't think anything of it. 'Agent Harry' was probably a mushroom she'd forgotten and left somewhere. He continued to watch Sjin work on the farm. Rythian had come to the conclusion the Sjin had nothing to do with the recent deaths. He was a madman with a farm, not a murderer, not anymore. Duncan, however, was perfectly capable of killing people. He had accomplices as well, his apprentice, his sister and the pool boy too. Rythian was okay with Kim, she was nice enough and friends with Zoey, so she couldn't be too bad. Hannah was... interesting. She and Nilesy had never killed anyone or threatened him. She had tried her best to look after Zoey out in the woods, and she didn't agree with most of Duncan's crazy ideas, so she was an ally of sorts, he supposed.

Zoey rushed back into the mushroom cave holding three brown mushrooms and one red one and placed them down next to the other mushrooms.

"I thought you were only going to get Harry." Rythian heard himself saying.

"I picked up a few more on the way back because they were lost." She sat down and started talking to 'Agent Harry' about his latest 'mission', and introduced the new mushrooms as Alex, Sam and Steve. The dim green lights in the mushroom cave cast a slightly eerie glow across the cave.

That was until the lights went out, ten minutes later.

"What the hell? Do the lights usually go out suddenly?" Asked Rythian.

"Uh, no? I wired them, they shouldn't go out unless the generator stops working." Zoey said immodestly. She exited the cave and started towards the tower. Rythian followed her. They entered the tall marble building and found it in absolute chaos. Apparently, the generator had gone out, along with all the electricity in the building. Lewis, Duncan and Trott had gone to try and fix it.

"Why the hell don't we have a back up generator? This is fucking stupid." Said Smith, annoyed. They were all in the common room, waiting for Lewis, Trott and Duncan to come back from the generator. Hannah and Nilesy had cast Lumos around the room to make up for the lack of lights. The building was cold, and the magical lights gave little heat.

"That generator shouldn't break unless it had been sabotaged by someone." Parv said after a long silence.

"What makes _you_  so sure?" Asked Panda

"Strife made it." Parv replied shortly. He seems to think 'Strife made it' was an appropriate response to a lot of things.

"Right, well, who could have sabotaged it?" Hannah asked. She had her clipboard and pen out again.

"Rythian was with me and I saw Sjin out on the farm." Zoey said.

"And the rest of us were in here or in the basement. Admit it, Rutherford, you have no idea who it is." Martyn spat. He was sitting on a swivel chair, slowly spinning around as he stared at the ceiling. He hadn't spoken much since Simon found Toby, so this sudden outburst was a surprise.

"Actually, I have four main suspects. I just have no way to prove any of them guilty." Hannah glared at him.

"Okay, who are they?" Asked Strippin, spinning a rail spike in his hand. Everyone was sitting away from him, because being hit in the face with a rail spike didn't sound like much fun.

"Parvis, Rythian, Ridge, and Duncan." Hannah didn't seem to be bothered by the fact she'd accused her brother of multiple murders.

"ME? What the fuck did  _I_ do wrong?" Parvis cried.

"Wow, rude." Whispered Ridge.

"I don't really blame you but I can assure you I have done nothing of the sort." Rythian said.

"Those are all things a murderer would say." Said Nilesy, who was trying to coax Lyndon down from a cupboard.

"Duncan? Why would you suspect him? I mean, he's a maniac, but he hasn't actually killed anyone since the old world." Simon pointed out.

"He did put a nuke under our castle and then blow it up." Rythian said. Zoey scratched the back of her neck and Tee roared.

"He pushed me into his flux sphere." Kim said, itching her flux so hard she broke the skin.

"He literally tried to kill us not two months ago." Said Trott, and Smith nodded.

"I'm fully aware of what my idiot brother has done in the past, and that's why I suspect him." Hannah threw her clipboard onto the coffee table. The lights flickered on, and everyone breathed sighs of relief. Nilesy removed the magical lights, but kept one to dangle in front of Lyndon. Duncan, Lewis and Trott came back about five minutes later.

"Someone sabotaged it." Lewis said

"Told ya." Parvis whispered. Panda glared at him.

"It was done really well, like, no one would have heard or seen them do it." Trott sat down next to Smith.

"Only an advanced scientist could have done it, a list which consists of me, Strife, Trott, and probably Zoey too." Duncan said, listing them off on his fingers. "We don't think it was done by magic, so unless one of the mages is secretly an amazing scientist, it wasn't them."

"Ah, fuck." Murmured Hannah.

"What?" Asked Duncan.

"You are the only person who could have logically could have killed these people and sabotaged the generator." She said, not looking him in the eyes.

"Okay, problem number one, I have alibis for every incident, I was even arm-wrestling you when the power went out. Problem number two, someone would have noticed but now, seeing as I'm clumsy as fuck and incapable of being quiet, which you point out every goddamn day." Duncan replied before storming out of the room.

"Well that could have gone better." Daltos said.

"It could have gone a lot worse." Replied Rythian. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I named the mushrooms after some of the Yogscast Staff. I could, so I did.


	8. Figure in the Window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannah receives a message from someone she hasn't spoken to in a while...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, I know Minty is no longer part of the Yogscast. That's why she isn't in the tower, but back at the Captive Creeper.  
> However, I love Minty to pieces, and couldn't not include her in this story. She doesn't play a very large part, but she is still important to the story.  
> I hope you understand!

"I mean, he's a madman at times, but could he really kill his best friend?" Hannah asked, pacing in front of the whiteboard again.

"Smith? Nah, those three were inseparable. I don't think they would kill each other for any reason." Nilesy stroked Lyndon, who was fast asleep in his lap.

"What if one of them did kill Strife, and Ross found out, so they killed him too." She stopped pacing and stared at the board.

"If anything, Ross would be in on the whole thing, if not helping them out. What about Daltos? He definitely isn't above murder, he killed a tuna sandwich, Zylus' mother, Zylus' rabbit, and planned to kill Zylus." Nilesy suggested.

"Daltos lived here for a month without touching Zylus once, I think he's clear." Hannah turned away from the whiteboard and stared at him. "What about Parvis. He's into dark magic, it's not unlikely that he'd do something like this."

"He wouldn't hurt Strife. Martyn's right, we have no clue who it is. Maybe we should go to bed, it's been a long week." Nilesy let go of Lyndon and he slinked off.

"Ugh, maybe you're right. I just need to message Kim about something, then I'll go to bed and try to get a decent nights sleep." Hannah pressed the power button on her communicator and scrolled through her contacts. She tapped Kim's name and a chat box opened.

"Alright, goodnight Hannah." Nilesy went into his bedroom and closed the door. Hannah sat down where Nilesy had been sitting and began messaging Kim. Lyndon climbed into Hannah's lap and purred.

Lomadia: Hey  
NanoSounds: Hi, what's up?  
Lomadia: Not much. Is Duncan with you?  
NanoSounds: Yeah, he's a bit upset you accused him of murder.  
Lomadia: I'll apologise tomorrow  
NanoSounds: Good.  
Lomadia: Keep an eye on him for me  
NanoSounds: Say please?  
Lomadia: Please?  
NanoSounds: Okay, I will.  
Lomadia: Thank you

Hannah closed her chat with Kim and sat back in the chair. Making sure Duncan was on his floor was just a precaution, in case he went wandering off in the middle of the night. He'd done it before, but he was usually back by morning. Hannah felt her communicator vibrate in her hand, telling her she had a message. She assumed it was from Kim, but it was from Minty.

MintyMinute: Hello Hannah.

Hannah was confused. Minty rarely made contact with her, and she'd outright refused to come and live in the tower. "I don't need to come and live in this stupid tower; I've not done anything wrong." Was her response when Simon begged her to come and live with them all.

Lomadia: Hey Minty, what's up?  
MintyMinute: Is something going on over there? No one had messaged me in an attempt to make me come over in nearly a week, and no one will reply to me.

Hannah wasn't sure if it was her place to tell her. How do you explain the mess they were in? Hannah didn't understand it herself.

Lomadia: I wouldn't come. Someone murdered Strife, Ross, Zylus and Toby. Not sure who it is, but I'm working on it.  
MintyMinute: Christ, is everyone okay?  
Lomadia: Define 'okay'. No one else has gone missing, but everyone's really shaken up

MintyMinute: Why didn't you leave after the first death?

Hannah thought about this for a moment. Why _didn't_ they leave?

Lomadia: Because the only person who isn't in some way a suspect is you. We can't leave until we work out who it is  
MintyMinute: Oh, okay. Could you message me any updates?  
Lomadia: Sure

Hannah shut off her communicator and stood up. At least Minty was okay and informed about everything. Hannah walked into her bedroom and took off her hat. She looked in the mirror which faced the window and saw her hair was a complete mess. She rummaged through one of her drawers and found her blue wooden hair brush. A present from Lewis. She looked up into the mirror and saw something in the window. Hannah turned around and saw a hooded figure standing right outside the window. This should have been impossible; they were four stories up for Notch's sake. The only way someone would be able to stand out there was if they could fly. Hannah grabbed her bow, notched an arrow, and aimed it at the figure. It didn't move. Hannah screamed for Nilesy before letting an arrow fly straight at whoever it was. She intended to hit them, but not anywhere vital. The window shattered as she landed a shot in their right arm, and the figure disappeared. Nilesy flung open the door and ran over to Hannah, stepping over the broken glass.

"Hannah! I heard you scream, and the glass shatter. Are you okay?" He asked, staring at the smashed window.

"Some bastard with a hood was standing right outside my window, so I shot them. Quick, call a meeting, now." Hannah grabbed her hat, ran out the room and slammed the elevator button, leaving Nilesy to wake everyone up. By the time everyone had gathered in the common room, Hannah had moved half the furniture and lined everyone up against the wall, even Nilesy.

"Alright, quick question before we start, how many of you can fly, or hover for an extended amount of time, or at least a few minutes." She asked nervously. She hadn't started pacing yet, but it was inevitable.

"Why?" Simon asked.

"Because it's a police investigation and I'm asking the questions." Hannah replied.

"Actually, me and Duncan are the only police officers here-" Sjin began.

"And the most useless. You've never arrested anyone and kept them in custody for more than two days." Parvis interrupted.

"Okay ladies, now's not the time. So put you're hand up if you can fly or hover for more then three minutes straight, aided or otherwise." Hannah requested. Everyone put their hand up. "Oh for fucks _sake._ Okay, I shot the person who was at my window in the right wrist, so there should at least be a mark or a scar if it was healed by magic or science. Everyone hold out your right wrist so I can check it." Everyone held their wrists out and Hannah went along the line and checked, dismissing people who were clear. It was closing in on 1am now, and everyone was pissed off and tired. 

She kept Parvis, Martyn, Kim, Benji and Zoey behind. Parvis had so many marks on his arms, it was hard to tell which were self-inflicted and which could have been done by an arrow. Hannah eventually concluded it wasn't him. The marks were too small or too old to be an arrowheads'. Martyn had a fresh cut on his wrist, and he claimed it was from an angry plant that has tried to take Parvis' head off. Parvis confirmed this, so Martyn was let go. Kim had so much flux on her arm at this point it was impossible to tell if there were any marks. A UV light confirmed that she had nothing there. Benji had a cut that perfectly matched that of an arrow on his wrist, but he and Strippin said they'd been attacked by a few skeletons the day before. They sarcastically offered to show Hannah the arrows they'd had to pull out. The marks on Strippin's back and leg, and an eyewitness account of the attack from Sjin proved Benji's innocence. It also caused an argument between Sjin and the Rail Bros as to why Sjin hadn't come to help them. Hannah kicked them out. Zoey's right arm was mechanical, but the wrist showed sign's of being repaired recently. Zoey claimed she'd broken it while in her mushroom cave two days ago. Tee and Rythian claimed to have no knowledge of a broken arm, but she said she had fixed it in private so no one would worry about her. The breakage seemed well repaired, and she wouldn't have been able to do it in the ten minutes between the figure leaving the window and her coming downstairs. Hannah dismissed her, sighed loudly, and put her head against a wall.

"Didn't find you murderer then?" A familiar female voice asked from the doorway.

"Where's Duncan?" Hannah asked with a sigh.

"I'm not his babysitter, and he's already fast asleep again. I'm guessing you still don't have any clue who it is?"

"None. I don't know if the murderer is the same person as the one who was in the woods or at my window. I don't even know if it's one person or a group of them." Hannah adjusted her hat slightly, which had gone askew during the chaos. "I'm on the verge of giving up and sending everyone home."

"Home sounds great right now. I miss Tiddles, but we left her loads of fish that Nilesy gave us, she'll be okay." Kim said, leaning against the doorframe.

"You didn't bring her with you?" Hannah asked surprised. Duncan loved the cat, why wouldn't he bring her along too?

"I didn't trust Duncan or Hat Films to not kill her or something awfully cruel." Kim said.

"Fair enough." Hannah said. She was about to suggest heading to bed when she heard a commotion coming from the main hall. Kim turned around and Hannah walked to her side. Sips was trying to walk out of the main door, but Sjin was trying to drag him back in.

"You can't just leave! You can't!" Sjin was wailing.

"Get off of me, ya big babby. I'm not staying somewhere where I could be murdered at any goddamn moment!" Sips yanked his arm away.

"Sips, what the fuck are you  _doing_?" Yelled Hannah.

"Leaving!" He yelled back before storming out the door. Kim grabbed Sjin and forced him back into the elevator, telling him they'd deal with Sips.

"Sips, you idiot, come back here!" Hannah looked around outside and spotted Sips rounding the corner in the general direction of his base. Hannah sighed. Fucking Sips, always had to be difficult. She started walking towards where he had been when she heard Sips scream. She froze, and Kim ran out behind her.

"SIPS?" They yelled.

He didn't scream again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I be sorry yet?  
> I'm still not sorry.


	9. Three Days Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three days later, and nothing else had happened.  
> Rythian wished it had stayed that way...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably apologise for this one.  
> I'm not going to, but I'm aware that I should.

It had been three days since Sips disappeared.

It had been two days since Sips was found dead, drained of all his blood. Ridge said he was alive until the last moment

And no one else had gone missing.

Kim and Duncan were trying to wire up a new computer because they had far too many chests and it was starting to get out of hand. Bebop had taken a liking to Barnabus and was keeping him as a pet on his floor, so they couldn't get him to do it for them. They'd done it before, but that didn't mean it was easy. Kim hadn't let Duncan out of her sight, and was trying not to think about how nothing had happened while she'd been keeping a close eye on him.

"Do you even know what you're doing?" Kim asked, as Duncan scratched the back of his head in confusion.

"Of course I do, I'm a professional mad scientist. Could you grab me a... screwdriver? Yeah, a screwdriver." Duncan asked, goggles over his eyes.

"Uh, which one, and where is it?" Kim jumped up off the crafting table she'd been sitting on.

"The blue one, it's on my desk, probably." Duncan said. Kim walked over to his desk and picked up a blue screwdriver and threw it to him, narrowly avoiding his face.

"Thaaaanks!" Duncan said. Kim felt her communicator buzz in her pocket. She pulled out her communicator and opened the messages. It was from Rythian.

Rythian: Have you seen Zoey recently?

Kim's heart stopped for a second.

NanoSounds: No, it's just me and Duncan up here. Why what's the matter?  
Rythian: Nothing, I'm just checking where she is. Are you and Duncan okay?  
NanoSounds: We're both fine. Are you, Tee and Zoey okay?  
Rythian: Yeah, we're fine.

Kim decided not to worry about Zoey. She was probably surrounded by mushrooms in a field somewhere. She sat back up on the crafting table and started asking things about the computer and teasing Duncan about how bad a scientist he was. His communicator buzzed around half an hour later.

"Oh, it's Lewis! He's said to meet up outside. We have to be there." Duncan stood up and pushed his goggles up onto his head.

"Did he say why we're having a meeting?" Kim asked as she hopped off the crafting table and brushed off her kimono.

"Nah, he just said to meet up outside. Come on." He said, and they got into the elevator. Parvis and Martyn were already in it. Parvis had a fresh scratch on his face from where one of Martyn's many plants had attacked him. Apparently, they didn't like dark magic. The elevator doors opened, they went outside and sat on the ground with Simon and the guys from the basement. People slowly trickled out of the building and sat down with them, except for Zoey and Rythian, who were nowhere in sight. Lewis stood up in front of everyone.

"Right, okay, we have _another_ missing person, we think. When was the last time anyone saw Zoey?" He asked. Kim remembered the conversation she had with Rythian.

"She came down to the basement last night to get Tee, we were having another round of the Lever game." Ravi said. Tee and Panda nodded.

"I saw her this morning; she was looking for a mushroom named... Mark? She thought he'd come up to our floor because of all the plants I have." Martyn said. Parvis gave him an odd look. "He wasn't, so she left. Said something about checking the basement."

"Okay, has anyone seen her since this morning? Did she go back down to the basement after that?" Lewis asked. Ravs and Panda shook their heads.

"Has Rythian seen her? Actually where  _is_ Rythian?" Hannah asked. Rythian still hadn't turned up.

"We locked him in the basement because he kept breaking things and crying." I suggest avoiding him until we find her." Said Nilesy. A loud explosion cam from the basement, followed by an anguished scream. Everybody got the point.

"Right, does anyone have any idea where she could be?" Lewis asked. No one answered, not even Hannah, who had been investigating everything that had been going on for weeks.

"Right, well, we'll send out some search parties, then." They tried to decide if letting Rythian come was a good idea or not. They eventually decided to unlock the door and see if he came out.

He didn't, so they all left. They split up into one group of four and three groups of five and headed off in different directions.

Martyn, Parvis, Panda and Daltos headed North.

Strippin, Benji, Ravs, Ridge and Bebop headed East.

Hannah, Nilesy, Kim, Duncan and Tee headed South.

Lewis, Simon, Smith, Trott and Sjin headed West.

Hannah promised herself she would find Zoey alive. She wasn't going to lose another one, not today, not ever. She'd already failed Toby and she'd promised Rythian that she'd look after Zoey, Hannah was pretty sure Rythian had teleported out of the basement ages ago, and was already searching for Zoey. Hannah was right, of course. Hannah was nearly always right.

Martyn was angry, although he didn't show it. He'd suggested search parties when Toby disappeared, and they hadn't fucking listened. Toby was dead. And then Zoey goes missing, and everyone is so desperate to find her.

Martyn hated them all for it.

He'd get revenge some day.

Rythian was flying through the forest, following a tracker he'd put in Zoey's mechanical arm. He promised himself he was never going to lose her again, and the tracker had been the best option. Zoey had never found it while tinkering with her arm, and if she had, she never mentioned it. Rythian was half a kilometre from where she was, and if Ridge was right, she'd still be alive for quite a while. Zoey would be okay. She had to be. Rythian wasn't going to lose her again. He arrived in a clearing, not unlike the one Zoey had found Zylus, for all Rythian knew, it could be the very same. He stood exactly where she should have been...

And she wasn't there.

All that was there was her arm, hanging from a tree by it's wires. Behind it was a message written in blood. It said...

"Nice try, Enderborn."

Rythian broke down again. He screamed, a non-human scream that sounded like static and animals dying in agony, until his lungs gave out and his throat was raw. He lay there curled up in the clearing, whimpering, waiting for the earth to consume him.

Maybe if he lay there for long enough, he'd see Zoey again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone needs to stop me.


	10. Blood, Blood, Gallons of the Stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search for Zoey is called off, and Martyn contemplates everything that has happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is A LOT of blood is this one.  
> It is entirely Parv's fault...

Hannah’s group found Rythian in the clearing a few hours later. They sat with him silently until he finally sat up and agreed to go back to the tower, an hour after they’d found him. They took Zoey’s arm with them, so they could give it back when they found her. Hannah was the one who insisted ‘We’ll give it back when we find her.’ The search was called off, at Rythian’s request, which everyone found strange but didn’t question. Grief does funny things to people. Tee had made a small camp on the roof to keep look out.  
Martyn sat in front of one of the largest windows on his floor, watching the sun go down, the streaks of red and gold lighting up the mountain range to the west. Everything had gone wrong. This was supposed to be a fun vacation so peace could be kept between everyone. Instead, five people had died, including his best friend, and now Zoey was missing as well. He had seriously considered leaving more than once, but had ditched that idea after Sips tried it and was murdered. Martyn had no idea who it could possibly be. To be perfectly honest, he’d suspected Parvis for quite a while. That was until Toby had vanished, and the generator had been sabotaged. Admittedly, Parvis had been with Martyn every time someone vanished and turned up. He’d been living on Martyn and Toby’s floor since Strife was murdered to stop him from doing anything stupid. He wouldn’t have been able to break the generator either, whether Strife taught him how to or not. It wasn’t Parvis, but then who on earth was it? Martyn didn’t hear Parvis walk up behind him, and jumped as he spoke.  
“I’m going to get food, you coming?” He asked, batting a plant away from him as it tried to scratch his face.  
“I’m not hungry.” Martyn lied. He hadn’t eaten all day, because he really didn’t want to.  
“Well, I’m bringing you food anyway. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” Parvis got into the elevator and left. Martyn looked back out the window. The sun had disappeared behind the mountains and was replaced with the inky black of the night. The stars shined bright, and Martyn tried to name some of the constellations he could see, but could only name two or three. It was nearly half an hour later when he realised Parvis hadn’t come back yet. He’d probably gotten distracted and forgotten about his promise to get food. Martyn sighed and stood up. Bloody Parvis, so very useless. Martyn called the elevator, got in, and pressed for the ground floor. The elevator stopped at Lewis and Simon’s floor, and Hannah got in. Her long blonde hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, her hat pulled roughly over it. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days, but she smiled.  
“Hey Martyn, how are you?”  
“Hungry. Parv said he’d get me food half an hour ago, and he hasn’t come back. I’m going to find him, and shout at him.” Martyn laughed for what felt like the first time in years.  
“Hasn’t… come back?” Hannah asked, startled.  
“I’m sure he’s fine. Probably got distracted by something or someone and forgot about me.” He said as the elevator doors opened. Hannah went down to the basement and Martyn wandered into the common room. He couldn’t see Parvis anywhere. Strippin was sitting right next to the door, so he asked him.  
“Yo, have you seen Parv?”  
“Parv? Nah, not seen him since this morning. Why?” Strippin asked.  
“He said he was coming to get me food and never came back.” Martyn was starting to get worried.  
“Shit. HEY, HAS ANYONE SEEN PARVIS?” Strippin yelled. Everyone jumped and turned around.  
“Uh, not since this afternoon. Has he… gone missing, or something?” Benji asked.  
“He said he was coming down here to get us food over half an hour ago. Has no one seen him since?” Martyn asked.  
“No, I’ve been here for over an hour, and I’ve not seen him.” Said Trott. “Pretty much everyone has come in here in the last hour or so, except Tee and Hannah.”  
“Speaking of Hannah, where is she?” asked Duncan.  
“She went up to Lewis’ floor to get something, and she’s probably in the basement by now. She reckons there’s something down there.” Nilesy said. Simon nodded.  
“Something down there? Like what?” Rythian asked.  
“She didn’t say, I don’t think.” Nilesy replied. He hadn't actually been listening when she was talking about the basement, so he had no idea. Rythian just nodded and seemed to be deep in thought.  
“Right. Can someone go and ask Tee if he’s seen anything?” Lewis asked.  
“Not really. Zoey is the only person who can do sign language, and the dinosaur can’t write.” Ravs said. He was right. Zoey had never taught anyone else sign language, not even Rythian.  
“Well, we’ll just have to manage. Benji, Strippin, can you get up on the roof without getting yourself killed?” Lewis asked.  
“Probably. Come on Benj!” Strippin and Benji left for the elevator. If they went up into Martyn’s floor, they could get out of a window and up onto the roof. If they fell, they would definitely die. It’s not like they’d be the first ones to be killed.  
Sadly, they didn’t get that far.  
The people left in the common room started discussing various things, from Parvis’ disappearance to what they were going to have for dinner, but not a minute later Benji screamed.  
“FUCKING SHIT!” Yelled Strippin, and everyone ran out to see what was going on. The sight before them was horrific. Parvis was sitting upright in the elevator, drained of all his blood, and there was blood everywhere. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all covered in the crimson liquid, and it was slowly pooling out of the elevator. Despite this, not a drop of it was on Parvis’ body. Ridge had started burning a circle into the stone floor.  
“Hey! You’re ruining the floor!” Sjin exclaimed before Smith hit him on the arm.  
“Shut it, farm boy.” He hissed. Ridge set fire to the circle again.  
“I was in that elevator not two fucking minutes ago, none of that shit was there, just ask Hannah.” Martyn said, shocked.  
“Okay, this doesn’t make any sense.” Ridge said. “Parvis is dead, obviously. And usually it takes a day for the bodies to turn up, and as the bodies turn up, someone else goes missing. But, it’s been less than an hour and he’s already here. Did you come down in the elevator Martyn?”  
Martyn was in shock, but he managed to nod.  
“Okay, so someone would have had to place him in the last five minutes. The only people who could have done that is Tee, Martyn, or Hannah.”  
“It’s not Hannah.” Said Duncan, Lewis, and Nilesy at the same time.  
“What’s not me?” Hannah asked as she walked up the basement stairs. She caught sight of Parvis, and gasped. “Oh, no, that’s not me.”  
“Uh, Ridge?” Kim askedquietly.  
“What?”  
“Whose blood is this?” She asked. Ridge seemed to see where she was going with her train of thought.  
“Right, good idea.” Ridge scanned the blood using magic. “Let’s see, it’s female blood.” Rythian went pale. “It’s not Hannah’s, not Zoey’s, too not-fluxy to be Kim’s… It…Wait… What?”  
“There are only three women here, if it’s not any of them, who is- oh shit.” Panda said. Everyone seemed to latch on at once. Hannah pulled out her communicator and started messaging frantically.  
Lomadia: Minty?  
MintyMinute: Hannah?  
Lomadia: Could you explain to me why your blood is all over our elevator?  
MintyMinute: What?  
Lomadia: Your blood is all over our elevator, and Parv is dead in the elevator  
MintyMinute: That’s… worrying.  
Lomadia: No shit  
“Minty is alive, I just messaged her. Is it all Minty’s blood, or a mixture?” Hannah asked, shutting her communicator off.  
“I think it’s just Minty’s. Does she have any sort of healing powers, or anything like that.” Ridge seemed to direct this question to Sjin.  
“She’s a barmaid, she can’t do any sort of magic.” Said Ravs, to everyone’s surprise.  
“How do you know?” Daltos asked.  
“I like to keep an eye on my competition.” He replied simply.  
“Well, there’s about three-quarters of a bodies worth of blood here. She would most definitely be dead.” Ridge was about to check on Minty’s health, when an explosion shook the whole building, knocking everyone to the ground.  
“What the ever-loving fuck was that?” Simon yelled, scrambling off of Lewis, who he’d landed on in the fall.  
“I don’t know, but last time I heard an explosion like that, Smith had blown up Gape Silo One.” Trott shouted.  
“Hey, that was not my fault!” Smith yelled, obviously still slightly deafened from the explosion. Kim was bleeding quite heavily, as a large shard of glass from the window had hit her arm. She and Duncan stayed inside while everyone else went to investigate the explosion. A large cloud of dust was coming from where the rail line used to be. Strippin ran over to it and swore loudly.  
“FUCKING FUCK! IT TOOK US FOREVER TO GET THAT FINISHED! NOW WE CAN’T GET ANY SUPPLIES! GOD DAMN IT!” He fell to his knees and put his head in his hands. Martyn came and knelt next to him.  
“Look, it’s fine. I’m sure we can get this fixed, can’t we Benj? Benj?” He looked around, but Benji was nowhere in sight. “Oh shit, BENJI?”  
“I didn’t see him come out here, he’s probably with Kim and Duncan.” Panda said, just as Kim and Duncan walked out, Kim with a bandage on her arm. “Ah, yeah, is Benji with you?”  
“Uh, no. It was just us. Where the hell is Tee? Isn’t he supposed to be on lookout for this sort of crap?” Kim asked.  
“Good point, someone go check on him please?” Lewis ordered, and Rythian flew up to the roof. Simon mumbled something about not being allowed to fly. Everyone else went back inside. Martyn and Sjin stayed downstairs to clean up the glass that littered the floor like tiny shards of hatred, and to clear out the elevator. Everyone else went to their floors via the stairs. Hannah pulled Parvis’ picture off the whiteboard and put it in a file, just in case. She sighed. Parvis was logically the only person who could have done this. She’d actually been working on a theory that he’d bewitched Zoey or Duncan into breaking the generator, and then he turned up dead. Hannah felt her communicator vibrate in her pocket.  
RavsTCC: Was it necessary to rip up our carpets and move all our furniture?  
Lomadia: Yes  
RavsTCC: Why?  
Lomadia: I thought there might be something under your floor.  
RavsTCC: We’re underground, there’s nothing below here except dirt and stone.  
Hannah shut off her communicator and picked up Lyndon. Nilesy was down in the basement, so she had both the floor and the pets to herself. She let him climb round her arms as she sat down on the sofa.  
“I’m missing something. I know it. You’re an intelligent cat, you must know something.” Hannah scratched Lyndon’s ears. “Strife would know, so would Ross. And Toby, he was a smart kid. And Zoey has good eyes, she would probably have seen something. And now Benji is gone. What am I going to do Lyndon?”  
Lyndon meowed. If Lyndon could speak English, he would have said, “Do not worry, kind, yellow furred human. You will work everything out.”  
It’s a shame cats can’t tell the future.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any theories or ideas about who the murderer, or murderers, is/are, feel free to comment them!  
> You never know, you could be right...


	11. Flux Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strippin tries to fix the rail line, and Hannah, Nilesy and Duncan do some detective work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, school will be starting up for me tomorrow, so I won't be uploading as frequently, except for the weekends. It's Summer in six weeks, so I'll be back to constant uploading then!

Strippin tried to fix the rail on his own. It had been blown up for as far as he could see, and probably further, so he had to start from scratch. It was difficult, but he was pretty sure he’d get it done before they ran out of supplies. His communicator was sitting on a wooden box at the start of the rail line, so he didn’t check it until he took a break around midday.

LividCoffee: Is Kim helping you? [30 minutes ago]  
HybridPanda: Do you know where Ravs is? [25 minutes ago]  
Daltos: Have you seen Ravs? [20 minutes ago]  
Xephos: We’re having a meeting; we need everyone there. [10 minutes ago]  
Lomadia: Where the hell are you? [5 minutes ago]

Shit, why had no one come to get him? Did they think he was missing too? Strippin grabbed his rail spike and ran back to the tower. He burst into the common room and nearly landed on Daltos who had been leaning on the door.

"STRIPPIN! WHAT THE HELL?" Daltos yelled.

“Fucking finally. This meeting started ten minutes ago, we thought you’d been taken too. Anyway, carry on Hannah.” Lewis sighed, and everyone turned their attention back to Hannah. Daltos stood up and moved to sit over by Panda. Seeing as half of the people who had been living in the tower originally had died, there was literally no reason for Daltos to be standing up, let alone anywhere near the door, Strippin thought as he rubbed his leg, which he had landed on.

“Yes, right. Like I was saying, I don’t think Minty will be any help. Mainly because I don’t think she’s alive.” Hannah said.

“She’s not. I’m not sure how long she’s been dead for, but she’s definitely been dead since the day before we found Parvis.” Ridge said, like this wasn’t vital information. “I didn’t say anything before now because I didn’t actually know until about half an hour ago. I haven’t got a very strong link with Minty as I’m very rarely anywhere near her, so it took me a while to get any information out of her link.”

“That’s bullshit. Hannah spoke to her not five minutes after we found Parv in the elevator, didn’t you sis?” Duncan seemed to have a point.

“I sent and received messages to and from her communicator. Anyone of us could have been messaging from it. Honestly, the only living things I trust right now is Lyndon and Mr. Owl. And we still haven’t found Zoey.” Said Hannah.

“And now Kim and Ravs are missing. We’re fucked, guys. Totally fucked.” Said Trott.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Rythian agreed. Panda was staring out the window, but looked back at everyone to say;

“Ridge, why did you say you didn’t have a link to Rythian, Zoey, and Tee again?”

“I could never get close enough to any of them without alerting someone else that I was there. Also, I don’t think it would work on a Dinosaur.” Ridge replied.

“Well, it worked on me, a half panda, a walrus, and whatever the fuck Smith is.” He pointed out. Ridge just shrugged, and Panda turned his attention back to the window and saw the treeline was engulfed in flames.

“JESUS CHRIST!” He yelled, and a few people ran over to the windows. People threw out profanities and screams as they scrambled to grab buckets of water and tried to put out the blazing fire. I took nearly 4 hours before the fire died down, and by then the closest part of the forest had burned to a crisp. Everyone laid outside until it started to get dark. The first person inside was Duncan. The first thing he saw was Benji, hanging from the light fitting, similar to how Ross had been found. The second thing he saw was Ravs, sitting against a wall like Parv and Zylus had been found. Both were drained of their blood. The third thing he saw was his apprentice, pinned against the wall with her own sword, before he blacked out.

* * *

 

Duncan woke up an hour later, lying on Hannah’s bed. He lay confused for a moment before he remembered what had happened.

Kim was dead.

He shot up and leapt out of bed. Bad idea. He stood still for a minute, trying to clear the dizziness from his head. When it finally subsided, he looked around the room. No one was with him, not even Mr. Owl, who would usually be asleep on his perch at this time. He glanced out the window to see it was dark and raining rather heavily, which made him sadder than he already was. The weather didn’t even have the decency to be nice on the day his best friend had died. Duncan moved towards the door and listened against it. He heard Nilesy and Hannah discussing something, and it sounded like one of them was pacing. It was probably Hannah. She always paced when she was thinking about something she deemed important. Duncan slowly opened the door and entered the room where the whiteboard was. He saw Kim, Benji and Ravs’ pictures had been removed. Instead, there was a scrap of paper with writing that Duncan couldn’t read from this angle. Nilesy noticed him before Hannah did.

“Oh! Duncan! You’re awake!” He said, a black cat curled up in his arms. Hannah stopped pacing and smiled.

“I need your help with something. Can you remember how the generator was sabotaged?” Hannah asked. Duncan knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to distract him, so he wouldn’t do anything stupid/life-threatening. He decided to play along with it, for her benefit.

“Uh, yeah. We think it had been rewired so it would stop working without being permanently damaged, and it was easily fixable. Even I’m not 100% sure how you’d do that, neither is Trott. Lewis reckons he could do it if it was a normal generator, but Strife made it, so it’s practically impossible unless you’re Strife, or he taught you how to do it.” Duncan scratched the back of his neck.

“Except Strife had been dead for, like, three days when the generator went down.” Nilesy pointed out.

“Unless he told Parv!” Hannah was about to write something on the whiteboard when Duncan interrupted her.

“Parv’s dead.”

“Oh, yeah, right, shit. Would Strife had told anyone else?” She lowered her marker pen in defeat.

“No. He’s far too over protective of everything to tell anyone, even Parvis.” Nilesy put Lyndon back on the floor, and the silky black cat stalked away. Hannah sat down and put her head in her hands. Duncan wandered over to the whiteboard and looked at the piece of paper he hadn’t been able to read from his place by Hannah’s bedroom door. The scrap of paper was a note, not written in blood this time, that seemed to be in Ravs’ handwriting. All it said was;

‘Why’

“Hey Han? Where did you get this note?” Duncan asked.

“I found it on Ravs while looking for clues. That was the only thing he had, he didn’t have any weapons or anything like that.” Nilesy said. Lyndon had found his way up onto on of the cupboards. “NO! Lyndon, you get down from there!” He yelled, jumping up and trying to grab the cat.

“Has anyone had any weapons or anything on them at all when they were found?” Asked Duncan.

“Uh, I don’t think so. I think Parv still had his knife on him, and Kim had her sword.” Hannah shifted awkwardly. “But, no. Strife didn’t have his atomic disassembler on him, Toby didn’t have the diamond sword I gave him, Ross didn’t have any marble on him at all.”

“Zoey wouldn’t have her arm, because Rythian has it. GET _DOWN_ YOU **_BASTARD_** _**CAT**_!” Nilesy walked out to get a chair so he could get Lyndon down before he destroyed something or hurt himself. Hannah whistled, and Lyndon jumped down and sat back on the sofa. Duncan laughed.

“You can stay down here if you don’t want to be on your floor.” She said.

“Yeah, that’ll be good. Hug?” He asked, and Hannah nodded. Duncan wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest, trying not to think about Kim, and how he would never be able to talk to her again.


	12. The Pact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pact is formed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, this one is short. I will upload another one after I've done some writing for my other stuff!

Meeting your worst enemies on the roof of an eleven story building at midnight while an unknown serial killer is on the loose is a terrible idea. Despite knowing this, Rythian found himself on the roof of the tower just before midnight, sitting and waiting for Duncan and Sjin to turn up. He hadn’t seen either of them since Kim turned up impaled onto the wall with her own sword. Duncan had sent a message to them both to meet him on the roof at midnight to discuss… well, he hadn’t actually specified what they were going to discuss, but it probably wasn’t anything bad. Probably. Rythian was perfectly capable of looking after himself, no matter what Zoey said, so if shit went down, it would be Sjin and Duncan before him. And then Hannah would break his neck and throw him into a lake, but it hopefully wouldn’t come to that.  
Rythian was watching the cows wander around their pen when he heard someone climb up onto the roof. Rythian put his hand on his katar, but changed his mind when he saw Duncan.  
“Hello.”  
“Hi, did you close the window after you climbed up? It was jammed close, took me forever to get it open again.” Duncan slowly moved towards where Rythian was sitting.  
“No, I left it open. I want to get down from here alive, you know?” Rythian said, and Duncan laughed.  
“Sjin's not here yet then?” Duncan asked.  
“No, late as usual.” Rythian replied.  
“Right.”  
They sat down a good distance away from each other, and awaited Sjin’s arrival. Sjin arrived ten minutes late.  
“Trott’s gone missing. Everyone’s running around like maniacs, no one will realise we’re gone.” He said.  
“Except Hannah, Nilesy, and Tee because we told them we were coming up here. Notice the lack of bow-wielding dinosaur?” Duncan asked. “Also, that sounded kinda like a threat. You know, a “No one will hear you scream” type thing?” Rythian snorted and Sjin rolled his eyes.  
“You called the meeting. Actually, why did you call a meeting?” Sjin asked.  
“Well, I was thinking-” Duncan began.  
“You? Thinking? Whatever next?” Rythian asked sarcastically. Sjin sniggered.  
“Shut up, ‘oh mighty endermage’”. Anyway, we’ve all lost someone very close to us in the past few weeks, and I think we should combine forces to protect the only mutual friend we have left.” Duncan continued. Rythian seemed to know where he was going, but Sjin was clueless.  
“We don’t have any mutual friends though. My friends are all dead and Rythian hates pretty much everyone.” Sjin said, confused.  
“I don't hate _everyone,_ just you two. And actually, we do. Hannah.” Rythian said.  
“Oh, yeah.” Sjin nodded.  
“So, we protect your sister in a last ditch attempt to feel better about ourselves? Sounds good, I’m in.” Rythian replied. “Okay, I’m out of here before one of us starts another war.” He climbed back through the window Duncan had claimed had been jammed when he tried to get up. Martyn and Strippin were still downstairs, so he didn't meet anyone, and no one asked any questions.  
“Right, yeah, I’d better be off as well. Kim will be wondering where I am.” Duncan said.  
“You mean… Hannah, right?” Sjin asked, suddenly scared for Duncan’s mental health.  
“What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I meant…” Duncan trailed off, and stared off somewhere past the forest.  
“Right, I’m going to go. Don’t, um… get yourself murdered or start any wars or anything, okay?” Duncan didn’t reply, so Sjin just patted him on the shoulder before leaving through the window as well.  
Ridge uncloaked himself. Duncan was too far into his thoughts to notice him anyway. So they were trying to protect Hannah, were they? Let’s see how well that went...


	13. Blonde Girls covered in Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannah has a surprise dropped on her...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one, Sorry!

Hannah had given up on making herself look presentable days ago. Less than half the people who had lived at the tower originally were still alive, and she was beyond caring about anything other than catching the bastard who had killed her friends, and protecting everyone who was still alive. She still ate, mainly because Trott and Smith had been singing that damned song after getting wildly drunk one night, and she could hear it from two floors away. Rythian still hadn’t figured out the sound proofing spell, and had probably forgotten about it, so she could hear a lot of things. It was a lot quieter than it used to be though. Hannah used the stairs to go get some food. She couldn’t bear the thought of being in the elevator after what had happened to Parvis. They’d cleared up all of Minty’s blood, and sent Parvis’ body over to Yoglabs, but the elevator made her feel claustrophobic and sick. It still smelled of blood, no matter what they tried cleaning it with.  
The ground floor was quiet, mainly because it was 6am and no one else was awake yet. The common room door was closed, which was odd, because they only shut it if a serious meeting was going on. Hannah decided that one of the pets or robots had pushed it closed while on a night prowl. She pushed the door open, and something fell on her.  
That something was heavy and soft and blonde.  
It was a person.  
It was Minty.  
Hannah screamed and pushed Minty off of her. She shuffled backwards and hit the opposite wall. Minty looked like she had been dead for days, no, weeks. She was badly decomposed, but it was clearly her. She was still wearing her brown barmaids’ dress and her high heels. There wasn’t a trace of blood on her. The smell was horrific. It couldn’t have been her who was messaging Hannah for the last few weeks. They’d had numerous conversations where Hannah had updated Minty on everything that was happening. Had Hannah been updating the murderer?  
She screamed again.  
She screamed because she was terrified.  
Because Minty was truly dead, and had been for weeks.  
Because she had Minty’s flesh in her hair and all over her clothes.  
Because Minty couldn’t scream, and she never would again.  
Panda and Daltos burst through the door of the basement. Panda saw Hannah first, and ran to her side. He put his arm around her shoulders and attempted to calm her down. Daltos saw Minty first, and promptly vomited all over the basement stairs. Everyone else came downstairs a few minutes later. Nilesy sat down with Hannah and attempted to calm her, trying not to look at Minty. She had always been nice to him, and he didn’t want to remember her as she was now. Ridge slowly approached her, like she was suddenly going to reanimate and chew his face off. He cast a bit of magic over her.  
“She’s been dead for three weeks. Since before Strife died, I think. That means whoever Hannah was messaging is the murderer, and has Minty’s communicator.” Ridge stepped away from Minty, looking like he was about to throw up. A few people had thrown up along with Daltos.  
“I’ll move her and send her off to Yoglabs.” Strippin said. “I don’t need any help, but I’ll need a lookout. Tee?” Tee nodded and roared. Everyone else abandoned ship and went back to their floors. Hannah gave up completely on the idea of food, and let Nilesy lead her back to her room.  
“Go back to sleep, you’ve been staying up too late, and waking up too early.” Nilesy said. Hannah nodded and laid down on her bed. “Goodnight Han.”  
“G’night Nilesy.” She said. She fell asleep almost instantly.  
Strippin had never really been bothered by dead bodies. He wasn’t sure why. It helped that he hadn’t really known Minty, and he felt fairly safe with Tee on lookout. He loaded Minty into a cart, and attached a note Lewis had written.  
Dear YogLabs employees,  
This is the body of Miss Anya Ferris, AKA MintyMinute. We request that you take her body and bury her outside her bar, The Captive Creeper, and leave a plaque there in her memory. Please bury her in the clothes she is currently wearing.  
Thank you,  
The Yogscast.  
P.S. We apologise for the state of the body. It is not our fault, we swear.

Strippin took one last look at Minty’s body. She had been very pretty when she was alive. He pushed the cart onto a power rail, and she sailed off into the distance. He watched until he could no longer see her and the cart, just to make sure everything was okay. Strippin turned around and saw Tee was still on lookout. He had his bow aimed somewhere into the forest, probably after a deer. He saw a few people up in the windows, watching Minty’s send off. He resisted the urge to fire a flaming arrow at the cart. Strippin called to Tee, and they headed back into the tower. No one was downstairs, and Tee headed straight back up to the roof via the elevator. Strippin used the stairs for the same reason as Hannah, and pretty much everyone else who still lived in the building. He was staying on Martyn’s floor. ‘The Dream Team stays together’, Martyn had said after Benji had been found. The ten floor walk was tiring, but helped him to forget that fact he’d just sent a dead body away to be buried. Strippin opened the door to Martyn’s floor, and the overwhelming smell of foliage hit him. He’d only been living on the floor for two days, so he hadn’t quite gotten used to it yet. He had no idea how Toby ever did. Martyn was somewhere in the maze of plants, and Strippin really couldn’t be bothered to find and talk to him. He hung his rail spike on the wall next to his bed and laid down. He stared at the ceiling and thought about the events of the last few days. Who was actually still alive?  
Panda and Daltos were still down in the basement. Sjin was alone on his floor, Hannah and Nilesy were both okay. Well, not okay, but alive at least. Rythian still had Tee, Smith, Duncan and Martyn were on there own now, Ridge and Bebop were alive, and so were Lewis and Simon. Everyone else was dead. Strippin sighed. Everything had gone so very wrong. All he wanted to do was build a cool railway between everywhere and hang out with Martyn and Benji. Apparently, that was too much to ask for one person, and that same person had killed everyone, even Minty, who wasn’t even living at the tower.  
Strippin swore on Benji’s grave he would kill the bastard who had done this.


	14. What's Behind That Wall?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rythian decides to blow shit up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY OKAY OKAY  
> Just to confirm, Trott is dead. I forgot to write it into the story earlier because I was so caught up in what was going on with Minty and Hannah.  
> But yeah. He's dead. They found the body. Smith cried.

They were beginning to run out of ideas. There was no feasible way anyone could have killed anyone. Nothing made sense, and Nilesy was on the verge of giving up. That was until Rythian spoke up while they were in the common room a few hours after Minty had been dropped onto Hannah.  
“Hey Sjin, you built this place, didn’t you?” He asked. Rythian was staring straight at a wall  
“Yeah, me and Ross spent months building this place. I... I know every inch of this tower.” Sjin replied. He had no idea what Rythian was trying to say or ask, but it probably wasn’t good.  
“What’s behind that wall?” Rythian stood up and tapped on a wall that connected to the rest of the building.  
“Uh, just some empty space where I was going to put the elevator before I moved it. I thought it would look better directly opposite the front door.” Sjin said.  
“What do think is back there Rythian?” Nilesy asked.  
“Is this wall supporting anything important?” Rythian stepped back a short way.  
“Uh, no? What has that got to do with-” Sjin was cut off by Rythian blasting a whole through the wall. Through the wall was a small, dimly lit room.  
“RYTHIAN WHAT THE FUCK?” Lewis yelled as debris littered the floor and smashed through one of the windows.  
“Well that’s one way of getting through a wall.” Simon laughed, brushing marble off of his clothes.  
“My wall! My beautiful wall!” Sjin cried.  
“Shut up, Sjin, let’s see what’s back here.” Panda stepped through the hole into what should have been an empty room. The room was small, a bit bigger than the elevator shaft, and the only thing in there was a single chest. It looked rather ominous, so obviously the best option was to wait for everyone else before opening it.  
Panda had opened it before anyone got through the wall. He couldn’t see what was in it because of the dim light, so he closed it and took it into the common room.  
“I found a chest full of stuff.” Panda placed the chest down in the middle of the room. Lewis opened it and tipped all the stuff out onto the floor. The first thing in the chest was Strife’s atomic disassembler, which has his name engraved into the handle, just in case someone tried to steal it. Next there was a stack of marble, presumably Ross’, and a tuna sandwich, which Daltos claimed was a similar sandwich to the one he’d supposedly murdered in Newpool. There was Toby’s diamond sword, which Hannah had given him before they went into the forest. There was some dirt, Sips’, they reckoned, a red mushroom, which Duncan handed to Rythian. There was part of a blood altar, which must have been taken from Strife and Parvis’ floor, Benji’s rail spike, which Strippin hadn’t even noticed was missing before he moved to Martyn's floor, squid ink, which raised some questions about Ravs’ bar, a cherry blossom, and a nuclear missile. Smith snatched this from Lewis along with the marble and left. Rythian sat and stared at the red mushroom, as did Duncan with the cherry blossom. Strippin took the rail spike, Martyn took Toby’s sword, and for some reason Daltos got the sandwich. He was very confused as to why, but he just rolled with it. They weren’t sure what to do with the blood altar or the atomic disassembler, so they put them back in the chest.  
“Hey, you missed something.” Martyn said, pulling a bundle of leathery fabric from inside the chest. Nilesy recognised it immediately.  
“That’s… that’s Hannah’s hat.” He said.  
“I thought you said Hannah was asleep, and you locked the door so no one would disturb her.” Panda said.  
“He did, I just tried the door.” Ridge said, who had appeared out of nowhere.  
“CHRIST RIDGE!” Yelled Lewis as he fell backwards away from him. “STOP DOING THAT!”  
“Why the fuck would you try her bedroom door?” Nilesy asked angrily.  
“I wanted to check on her. Her heart rate kept changing, and I was quite concerned.” Ridge said.  
“How long ago was this?” Lewis asked.  
“Just before Rythian blasted through the wall.” Ridge leant against a different wall casually. "I heard the explosion from four floors away."   
“Well, _I’m_ going to check on her.” Nilesy stood up and left the common room. Unlike most of the buildings inhabitants, he had no problem with using the elevator, so he was there in under a minute. He unlocked the door and called out to Hannah. She didn’t reply, so he opened her bedroom door. She wasn’t on her bed where he’d left her a few hours ago. Nilesy looked to the left and saw Hannah sitting against the wall opposite her bed, deathly pale and a massive wound in the centre of her chest. She wasn’t wearing her hat. Nilesy stood and stared at Hannah’s body for what felt like hours. Hannah couldn’t just die. She was a warrior! She would have kicked the murderers ass! She couldn’t just be dead like everyone else!  
As he stood there, Nilesy remembered something Hannah has said the night before.

 **“I think I’ve got it Nilesy, I think I know who the murderer is!” Hannah threw down her pen and clapped.**  
**“Really? Who do you think it is?” Nilesy had dropped Lyndon in surprise. The cat hissed and ran behind the sofa. Hannah hadn’t said anything in hours, so this sudden outburst had made him jump.**  
**“I don’t want to say anything until I’ve talked to Lewis about something. I’ll have it all sorted out by tomorrow afternoon, I’m sure of it. I’m going to bed, I’m really tired.” She stretched and yawned.**  
**“Okay, good idea. Goodnight Hannah.” He smiled.**  
**“G’night Nilesy.” As she shut her bedroom door. Nilesy picked up Lyndon again and scratched behind his ear.**  
**“I’m** **sorry** **for** **dropping** **you,** **kitty.” Lyndon meowed.**

Nilesy was snapped back to reality by Ridge putting his hand on his shoulder.  
“I’m so sorry, dude.” He said.  
“ _You’re_ sorry? You’re _fucking_ sorry? My best friend is _dead_! You’re a fucking Demi-God, you’re supposed to protect us from this shit!” Nilesy hissed angrily. Ridge stepped back from him and looked genuinely hurt.  
“I… um… I’m going to try and tell Lewis and Duncan. You can… you can stay here with her and… and the cat.” Ridge walked out before Nilesy could shout at him more. Once Ridge had closed the door, the full weight of what had happened to Hannah fell on Nilesy. He collapsed in a fit of tears next to her body. Why did it have to be her? She was so close to working out who the murderer was, was that why she was killed? It wasn’t fair, she didn’t deserve this, she didn’t deserve any of this shit. She was kind, funny, clever and beautiful. She shouted a lot, she was bossy and sighed at his jokes, but she was _Hannah_ , his best friend. Nilesy convinced himself that this was all a horrific dream. He’d wake up and Hannah would be mad at him for something stupid and he’d hug her and everything would be okay.  
But he didn’t wake up.  
He didn’t wake up when Duncan and Lewis ran in.  
He didn’t wake up when Duncan screamed and broke down.  
He didn’t wake up when Lyndon curled up next to him.  
He didn’t wake up when he’d run out of tears.  
He didn’t wake up when he fell asleep in the middle of the floor, exhausted from crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first thing I have written that made me cry.  
> For the first time, I'm very sorry.


	15. Dead Plants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The murderer is running out of time, and out of options.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 400 hits? That's amazing, thank you so much!

* * *

Duncan sat on the edge of the roof of the tower, downing his fifth (or was it his sixth?) bottle of cider. He deserved it, he reasoned. Everyone he loved was dead. His sister’s death had hit him hard, as had Kim’s. He wasn’t sure what getting stupidly drunk on the roof was going to achieve, but he didn’t have anything else to do. Nearly everyone was dead, after all. Tee had given up on lookout, and was down on his own floor, probably. He heard someone climbing up onto the roof behind him, so he turned his head to look. Rythian was walking towards him slowly, looking very tired and slightly irritated.  
“Duncan, what the hell are you doing?” He asked, stopping a few metres behind him.  
“Drinkin’. You want some?” Duncan held up the bottle, knocking an empty one off the edge of the roof in the process. It shattered when it hit the ground, scaring a nearby sheep.  
“No, I don’t drink anymore. Do you want to move away from the edge of the roof?” Rythian didn’t want to move any closer, in case Duncan took a dive. He hated the guy, but no one deserved to die like that.  
“Nah, I’m alright here. No one will miss me while I’m up here.” Duncan swung his legs casually.  
Rythian sat down next to him, being careful not to push anymore bottles off. “Are you sure about that? Lewis and Simon are wondering where you are.”  
“Then why are you up here and not them?” Duncan took another swig of the bottle.  
“Lewis is still a complete wreck and Simon is trying to stop him from destroying everything. I came up here to make sure you weren’t going to make a nuclear weapon or something like that.” Rythian smiled, and Duncan laughed.  
“Nah, I’ve gone past nuclear warfare.”  
“Hat Films would disagree with that, I’m sure.” They laughed. “Well, I don’t think getting drunk is a good idea, especially on top of a building.” Rythian said.  
“Well, I don’t care. It’s fun.” Duncan drained the rest of the bottle and put it down next to him as carefully as his drunken hands would allow.  
“Hannah wouldn’t want you to get drunk, mainly because she would be the one to drag you home, but because you’re her brother and she loves you to pieces. And Kim wouldn’t want this either.” Rythian wasn’t sure why he was doing this. Because Zoey would. Zoey would be up here making him laugh and trying to get him away from the edge of the roof.  
“Yeah, well, they’re both gone, so it doesn’t matter.” Duncan said.  
“Don’t think like that-” Rythian began, but Duncan interrupted him.  
“Wow, Zoey really did rub off on you. You used to be really negative, and now you’re kinda nice. I like it, nice Rythian. Nice is good. Kim and Hannah are nice.” Duncan was slowly becoming less and less coherent.  
“Yeah, sure. I think you should go to bed now.” Rythian put his hand on Duncan’s arm.  
“Mmm, bed is good, bed is nice.” Duncan murmured. Rythian concentrated, and teleported to Duncan’s floor, taking Duncan with him. Duncan passed out as soon as they landed. It was to be expected of a human, weak and pitiful as they were. He’d collapsed onto his bed, so Rythian just left him to it. Dealing with Drunkan was not his job, it was Hannah’s. Was being the keyword. Rythian forced himself to stop thinking about Hannah and Duncan and Zoey. Thinking about them wouldn’t do any good. Not anymore.

* * *

  
Sjin: I need you down at the farm right now.  
Inthelittlewood: Dude it’s like 7am leave me alone  
Sjin: All of the plants are dead.  
Inthelittlewood: I’ll be right down.  
Martyn literally fell out of bed after he sent this message. Sjin had to be pulling a prank on him, but no one really had time for jokes anymore. The plants had been alive and perfectly healthy the night before, Sjin reckoned they’d be able to harvest a load of them within the next week or so. Martyn called to Strippin to tell him where he was going, and received a tired groan in return. He took the stairs two at a time, burst through the front doors and sprinted out to the farm. He arrived to see… no one. There was no one there, nothing there. The farm was deathly quiet. All the animals had disappeared without a trace, all the plants were shrivelled up and dead, and Sjin was nowhere in sight. Martyn called out to him and got no reply. He walked back inside the building and sent out a quick group message.  
Inthelittlewood: Plants are dead and animals are gone, Sjin messaged me but he’s not down here.  
Lewis: Shit, we’ll be down in a minute.  
Rythian: I haven’t seen Sjin since yesterday  
Smith: Goddamn  
Strippin: Bloody hell.  
Nilesy: Fan-fucking-tastic.  
Ridge: Sjin is still alive, I’ll be there in a second  
Everyone was at the farm within five minutes, except for Duncan, who was still passed out, and Sjin, who had disappeared. There was no trace of animals ever being there, and the plants didn’t seem to have been poisoned or anything, they looked like they’d just given up and died. It didn’t make sense, but none of what happened did.  
“Where’s Duncan?” Smith asked. He was the last one down.  
“Passed out and hung over. He drank six bottles of cider last night, so we might not see him for a while.” Rythian said.  
“Right. Did you say Sjin messaged you, Martyn?” Ridge had taken over as head detective, which Nilesy hated. Ridge hadn’t done shit to help until now, whereas Nilesy had listened to Hannah’s theories and ramblings, and even suggested some things that had helped the investigation. Martyn showed Ridge the messages.  
“Okay, why did Sjin send the messages and then leave? And if it wasn’t Sjin, why did the murderer send the messages instead of just waiting for Martyn to come down to the farm?” Ridge asked.  
“Maybe they wanted to lure Martyn out to kill him. There’s a pattern to these murders, Hannah was sure of it, and so am I. Hannah said the night before she died that she was close to working out who the murderer was, she just needed to talk to Lewis about something. I think the murderer is killing people who get close to working out their identity, and Hannah knew that, which is why she wouldn’t tell me. It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Nilesy looked around, and a few people nodded.  
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. What did people know before they died which meant they were killed?” Simon asked.  
“Well, Strife went into the forest before we drenched him, maybe he saw something?” Martyn suggested.  
“The forest is off limits unless I say otherwise, what was he doing in there?” Lewis asked.  
“I don’t know, but he seemed eager to talk to Parvis afterwards.” Martyn said.  
“Well, what did Zylus know? And Toby? And anyone other than Hannah?” Smith asked. “Ross and Trott knew nothing, or they would have told me, I’m sure.”  
“They must have known something, otherwise they’d still be alive.” Daltos said.  
“I think we should find out who people think who is the murderer, because it might help the investigation.” Bebop beeped.  
“Actually, that’s quite a good idea.” Strippin said. “I think it’s either Duncan or Rythian. No offence, mate.”  
Rythian shrugged. “It’s not the first time I’ve been accused of a crime I didn’t commit.”  
The voting was a mix between Ridge, Duncan, and Rythian, until Smith voiced his opinion.  
“I think it’s Zoey.” He said casually.  
“Bullshit, Zoey wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Rythian snapped, and Tee growled angrily. “Also, she’s dead, you’re an idiot.”  
“No, she’s missing. We only ever found her right arm, and Ridge doesn’t have a magical link to her. She has had opportunity since she disappeared, and before that. Those mushrooms have gone to her head; I’ll tell you that much.” Smith finished. Tee roared angrily and Rythian had a murderous look in his eyes.  
“As much as I love Zoey, I… I have to agree with Smith on certain things. We haven’t found her, and she has had opportunities. But she’s Zoey for Notch’s sake. The only person in this world who’s not hostile to some degree. Rythian’s right, she wouldn’t hurt a fly, and she was always with Tee before she disappeared. It just… doesn’t seem right.” Nilesy said. Rythian had stood up and left, Tee following behind him. Ridge sighed.  
“Well, I think we should all move onto a floor with at least three people until we can sort this out. Nilesy, move to the basement, Strippin can stay with Rythian, Smith can stay with me and Bebop and Martyn and Duncan can move in with Lewis and Simon. Deal?” Everyone nodded and started going back inside when a huge explosion rocked the earth and everything around them. Everyone was thrown to the floor. A rain of marble debris fell on them, luckily it seemed no massive bits had hit anyone.  
“What the fuck was that?” Simon yelled in shock.  
“The top floor!” Panda screamed. “The top floor is fucking gone!”  
“Holy shit, Duncan and Rythian are still in there!” Lewis yelled. At that moment, Duncan and Tee stumbled out of the front doors, dragging an unconscious Rythian behind them.  
“Fuck, what happened?” Strippin asked.  
“I don’t know! I came downstairs, and I bumped into these two. Rythian started ranting on about what a dick Smith is, and next thing he looked out the window, gasped, and fainted. Then we heard the massive explosion from upstairs.” Duncan said all of this very quickly and lowered Rythian down to the ground as gently as he could.  
“Are we not going to talk about how my entire floor has just gone up in smoke? All of mine and most of Strippin’s stuff was up there. And my plants! All my plants are gone!” Martyn started sobbing. Strippin turned around to try and console him, and gasped.  
“Holy shit! Smith!” Everyone turned around and saw Smith, lying on the floor with his head smashed in. His green skin was drenched in blood; his red eyes were glassy. Next to him, was Sjin, in the same condition as all the other bodies. There was no sign of a murder weapon, or a culprit, just a spray painted mushroom on the side of the wall with an X over it. His body was different to everyone else’s. Everyone else had had a single wound to the chest or back, was drained of all their blood, and had no blood on them at all. Smith had multiple wounds to his head, and there was blood everywhere. This murder had been rushed, practically unplanned.  
Zoey was running out of time, and out of options.  
Rythian slowly came too. The second he was properly conscious, he sat up.  
“I saw her. I saw Zoey. She’s alive. I’m so sorry Smith, I’m so fucking-” He turned his head and saw Smith’s body, “Oh shit.”  
“Oh shit is right. We need to find Zoey, right now.” Nilesy said.  
“Agreed.” Daltos replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There won't be a TYOGS chapter today, possibly not tomorrow either.  
> There will be something else in their place, provided I finish writing them.  
> MIYT will continue and the last chapter will be on Saturday if my maths is right!


	16. The Mighty Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A camp is set up away from the tower  
> It's a bad idea...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be two chapters today because there wasn't one yesterday.  
> FALL OUT BOY ANYONE?

They set up a camp nearly half a mile into the plains away from the tower. There was only 10 of them left, so they didn’t need many supplies. Tee took first watch that night. Few people actually slept.  
Ridge didn’t need to sleep much. Demi-God perks. He turned invisible and started wandering through the tower, going through people’s, dead and alive, stuff. You’d be surprised what some people hide under their beds or in their wardrobes. He didn’t take anything, other than a few photographs. He made sure he had at least one picture of everyone, even Minty, for reasons even he wasn’t sure of. He had a feeling it would be useful, if he had a face to face with Zoey. He put them all in a file and went back to camp a few hours later. After checking everyone was still alive, which they were, he went to sleep.  
Rythian was the first one awake. Actually, he didn’t sleep, but he was the first one to get up at the crack of dawn. He lit the campfire and made Tee go to sleep. The dinosaur fell asleep curled up on a sleeping mat almost instantly due to no one bothering to take up watch during the night. Rythian sat and watched the fire, and thought about… well, everything. He realised that it hadn’t rained in a long time. He didn’t know how long, but it had to be at least a week or so. He didn’t mind, he hated the rain, but it seemed odd to him. Everyone woke up within the next hour or so, except for Tee, who was out cold, and Strippin, who hadn’t moved at all. They tried to come up with some form of plan. After many different suggestions, from searching the tower (Martyn’s idea) to waiting for Zoey (Rythian’s idea) to throwing themselves off a cliff (Daltos’ idea), Martyn decided to wake Strippin up, as he still hadn’t moved at all.  
“Wake up.” Martyn kicked him in the back, hard enough to wake him, but soft enough to not hurt him too much. Strippin didn’t move.  
“I said wake up, you son of a bitch.” Martyn pulled the blanket off of him, but it wasn’t Strippin. It was a pile of blankets, shaped like a person and with a darker blanket that looked like his hair at the top.  
“Oh shit.” Martyn whispered. “Oh my god, no.”  
“What? What’s wrong?” Lewis walked over and stood next to him and saw the pile of blankets. He ordered Rythian to wake up Tee, and told Duncan, Simon and Panda to keep watch.  
“Tee, you kept watch all last night, right?” Lewis asked.  
Tee nodded.  
“Did you fall asleep at any point?” Lewis asked.  
Tee thought for a moment before shrugging.  
“Was that a maybe?”  
Tee nodded.  
“Okay, did you see anything strange at all?”.  
Tee shook his head.  
“Are you sure?”  
Tee nodded.  
Lewis sighed. They were getting no closer to finding Zoey, and now another person was gone. They’d all be dead by the end of the week at this rate. Martyn turned away from Strippin’s bed and sighed. Zoey must be completely insane. He heard something behind him, and was about to turn back around to where Strippin had been when an arrow whizzed out and struck him in the back of the neck. He couldn’t scream, he just whimpered and choked as he drowned in his own blood. Ridge managed to catch him before he collapsed, and lowered him to the ground before he died. Martyn heard a noise that sounded like teleporting just before and just after the arrow was fired.  
“Oh fuck. Oh fucking _fuck_!” Simon screamed.  
“Okay, forget staying away from the tower, we’re going back to the basement, right now.” Duncan said, picking up a few things.  
“Where the hell did that _come_ _from_? There’s no trees for a mile, and it wasn’t a skeleton, we’d have seen it.” Daltos asked frantically.  
“I don’t know, it doesn’t matter, let’s get out of here.” Panda said.  
They brought everything back into the tower and all walked down the stairs to the basement. Daltos was complaining about something when he tripped over a tripwire at the bottom of the stairs. The basement floor opened up, and Daltos fell into the black abyss below, screaming the whole way down.  
“DALTOS!” Nilesy screamed.  
“ _WOAH_.” Ridge had been just behind Daltos, and threw out an arm before anyone else fell down into the never ending pit.  
“Holy shit! Is _that_ what Hannah was looking for?” Duncan asked.  
“I don’t know, but I’m glad she didn’t find it when she was alone.” Lewis said.  
“How the hell do we get down there, because that’s probably where Zoey is hiding.” Simon asked. Rythian flew over the hole and looked around.  
“There’s a ladder right below you, you could probably climb down if you’re careful.” He said, still hovering over the hole.  
“Careful is my middle name.” Lewis said, moving past Ridge and starting down the ladder.  
“I thought your middle name was Alan.” Simon shouted down after him. Everyone laughed, but the air was tense.  
They all descended the ladder carefully, and it took nearly five minutes for them to get to the bottom of the hole. It was pitch black when they got to the bottom. Nilesy cast Lumos on the closest wall and revealed a long corridor made of basalt stone. Rythian touched down and looked around at everyone.  
“Hey, where’s Tee? I didn’t see him come down the ladder…” Rythian stopped, and he seemed to lose focus, his eyes glazing over.  
“Rythian, I’m sorry, but we don’t have time. We have to find Zoey before… I don’t know, but we have to find to find her, okay?” Duncan put his hands on Rythian’s shoulders. He used this tactic on Kim whenever she got a bit fluxed, and it seemed to work on Rythian as well. He nodded, but didn’t say a word.  
“Guys, not to worry you, but I really don’t think we should stay here.” Panda said. He looked incredibly worried.  
“What, are your panda senses tingling?” Nilesy joked, and Simon snickered.  
“Very fucking funny.” Panda looked over his shoulder and peered into the darkness.  
“I agree with the… Panda? We should move.” Lewis said, and Bebop beeped in agreement. They all headed down the stone corridor. It was deadly silent, other than the groups footsteps and Bebop’s quiet beeping. Nilesy continued to light the way with his wand. It reminded him painfully of Hannah. Lewis noticed a light that wasn’t from Nilesy’s wand around a corner, and told everyone to stop.  
“There’s a light down there, we need to be careful.” Lewis whispered.  
“Fuck that.” Ridge said, and he strode round the corner. He regretted his boldness about 5 seconds after he laid eyes on the room before him. “Fuck _that_.” And he returned to the group at light speed.  
“Okay, you know how we sent all the bodies off to Yoglabs?” Ridge asked. Everyone nodded. “Yeah, no. There’s over a dozen bodies hanging from the ceiling in there, including Strippin and Martyn.”  
“Are you trying to tell us Zoey caught up with the mine carts, took the bodies, brought them down here and no one fucking noticed? Bullshit.” Simon said.  
“Maybe she could teleport?” Panda suggested.  
“As someone who can see through walls, Ridge is right.” Bebop beeped.  
“Since when could you see through walls?” Ridge asked.  
Bebop shrugged. “Zoey’s idea. Said it might be useful. She fixed it for me the day before she disappeared, actually.”  
“That’s… unsettling.” Nilesy said nervously.  
“Well, we have to go through that room, so everyone keep your heads down and for god’s sake, don’t look at or touch the bodies.” Lewis said. They all rounded the corner and entered the room.  
The smell was intoxicating, and not in a good way. It smelled like, well, death. Rotting flesh and other things that no one ever wants to smell. Everyone bowed their heads and walked quickly to the other side of the room. Duncan made the mistake of looking up. He made eye contact with his sister. No, not his sister. Her dead corpse. She didn’t look like she had been decomposing, in fact, she looked more or less the same as when they had found her, dead against her bedroom wall. Hanging next to her was Kim. Dead Kim. He couldn’t see Daltos or Tee, which was weird and unsettling. Duncan looked down and walked faster. He couldn’t think about them. He had to find Zoey and make her pay for what she’d done to them. They all got through the room without major incident, and found themselves in a large room with a throne at the far end, and a blood altar in the middle.  
And sitting in the throne, looking bored and uninterested…  
Was Zoey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congratulation to tess_the_tree (I'm hoping that's your user name!) for guessing(ish) who the murderer was! Well done! You win... bragging rights? Yeah, bragging rights!


	17. The Evil Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've found Zoey, but... what now?

Rythian hadn’t believed any of it up until now. He was hoping that none of it was true, that Zoey hadn’t done any of this, that Smith was wrong. He wasn’t.  
“Took you long enough. I’ve been waiting here since I killed that green idiot.” Zoey twirled the one piece of blonde hair amongst the sea of red around her finger. Nilesy looked around the room and saw it was empty other than Zoey, her throne and the blood altar, which appeared to be dry of blood. She was wearing the same clothes she normally wore, complete with her visor and flying ring. She had a brand new arm, which was pure black. The only other thing different was a long, black, hooded cape.  
“Zoey, what the hell? Are you possessed or something?” Panda asked angrily.  
“Definitely something.” Zoey smiled. “Where’s… Where’s Daltos? I didn’t kill him, so where is he?”  
“Didn’t kill him? Between the tripwire and the massive fucking pit, I think you did.” Nilesy said angrily.  
“The fall wouldn’t have killed him. I put a feather fall enchantment to slow him down. Also, I like Daltos, why would I kill him?” She stopped playing with her hair and sat up.  
“I thought you liked Hannah and Kim, but here we are.” Duncan said. All he could thing about was revenge.  
“Hannah and Kim? Ha. Those two are so soft. No, I like murderers. People who have killed more than once, and don’t regret it.” She said, almost… casually. Nilesy raised his hand.  
“Uh, question one. Why are me and Bebop down here? And, um, question two, what happened to nice, happy, mushroom obsessed Zoey? I liked her, she didn’t kill people.” Nilesy asked. Zoey raised an eyebrow and looked at Bebop.  
“Oh, I forgot about the robot.” She said. She pointed her mechanical arm at him, and fired. He was disintegrated in a nanosecond.  
“BEBOP!” Everyone screamed. No one moved. Ridge stared where his friend had been not a moment before.  
“Well, that was fun. I didn’t really expect him to explode, doesn’t usually happen. Probably because he’s a cyborg. It’s a shame really, he was quite nice.” Zoey stood up and smiled.  
“And Nilesy, you know why you’re here. Do you know why they called him Pool Boy? You lot certainly didn’t give him the name.” She addressed them like they were a crowd she needed to entertain. “That was the name on his wanted posters in his home town. Fun, isn’t it?”  
“How did you do… any of this? It doesn’t make sense.” Panda asked, shocked from Zoey’s revelation.  
“Do it? I just killed Strife and took his teleporter. It worked from there. He found my little camp in the forest. I tried to make him promise not to tell, but he refused. Told me he was going to tell Parvis. I couldn’t have that happening now, could I?” Zoey’s voice was sickly sweet. “I wasn’t planning on murdering you all and using you for blood magic, but things happen how they happen, I suppose.”  
Lewis made a decision, one that would probably get him killed, but it might not. He slowly approached Zoey’s throne with his hands up. “Okay Zoey, you don’t have to kill anyone else. Just, explain what’s going on, and we can deal with this. Okay?” Lewis asked, trying his best to sound calm. Something seemed to flicker in Zoey’s eyes, but it lasted for less than a second.  
“You know, Lewis, you were always one of my favourites. You’ve killed so many people, ruined so many lives, even those of the people you call friends. Yoglabs was a fantastic idea, by the way. All those, inhumane experiments and evil plans for whoever paid the highest price. I loved sneaking in and exploring, it was so much fun. It’s a shame really.” Zoey pulled something out of her pocket. “I always liked the smart ones.” She threw a sharp black knife at him, and it slit straight across his throat. Lewis tried to scream, but the only sounds he could make were whimpering and choking. Simon screamed for him, and ran to his friends side. Lewis was dead after a few minutes, and Zoey smiled the whole time.  
“Zoey, please, just… just listen to me for a minute, okay? If you were ever my friend, please, just listen.” Rythian spoke for the first time since they’d entered the room. Zoey cocked her head slightly, indicating she was taking some interest. “Could you… Could you explain to me why you killed those people? Just… Just so I can… understand.” He stayed where he was, and kept his hand by his side. He didn’t really have a long term plan, but this was worth a shot.  
“Why? Because I got sick of you all. Everything started off fine. There was plenty of fighting and war for me to watch and enjoy and occasionally join in on. And then it all… stopped. After Blackrock went up, which, by the way, was really cool, no one was fighting anymore. Sure, the Flux Buddies and the Hats were having their little spat, but that was boring and dumb. And then Simon decided we had to all had to be friends, I decided to make things interesting.” Zoey shrugged.  
“So you started murdering people. You’re a psychopath, a complete and utter psychopath.” Panda hissed.  
“Psychopath? I am way worse than a psychopath. What’s the word I’m thinking of?” She clicked her fingers a few times. “Demi-God, that’s it. I’m like a Demi-God, but without the cool powers and stuff. Right Ridge?” Simon was crying now, realising his friend was well and truly dead.  
“Nah, Demi-Gods have positive emotions. You don’t.” Ridge said, looking away from where Bebop had been.  
“How did you even build this place? Someone would have noticed something, especially the ones in the basement.” Nilesy pointed out.  
Zoey laughed. “You think I build this place recently? No, this place has been here for years. I just put a concealment enchantment on the place, gave Ross and Sjin a few pointers on where to build the tower, and here we are!”  
“What about Panda? He’s really nice, like you used to be.” Nilesy asked.  
“How do you thing he got out of that lab? He was in a place quite like Yoglabs, until he slaughtered them all.” Zoey said.  
“Okay, but, why did you kill Strife and Sjin, they’re just as bad as-” Nilesy began before he was cut of by Zoey.  
“Ugh, I change my mind about keeping you alive, you’re getting very annoying.” Zoey aimed her mechanical arm at him and fired. Panda saw what she was doing, and pulled Nilesy out of the way. The plasma ball hit the wall behind them and ricocheted back and blew up the ceiling above Zoey. She screamed as the rubble fell on top of her, crushing her entire body. Her mechanical arm let off a few more shots, which hit the ceilings and walls, causing more rubble to block the exit. The ceiling slowly started caving in.  
“NO! ZOEY! ZOEY!” Duncan had to grab Rythian before he ran into the path of some falling stones. “Oh fuck, we’re never going to get out of this place, we’re trapped, we’re going to be crushed!” He yelled over the sound of the ceiling collapsing.  
“No shit!” Ridge yelled, dodging pieces of rubble.  
“I’m so sorry guys, this is all my fault. I never should have suggested this stupid plan.” Simon scrabbled away as Lewis’ body was covered in dust.  
“Oh don’t be so overdramatic, we all agreed to this, we knew the risks of us all being together. I didn’t really expect it to be Zoey who doomed us all, though.” Panda jumped out of the way of some falling masonry as he said this. Nilesy had been overcome with anxiety and fear at this point, and was sitting on the floor, sobbing into his hands.  
“Uh, Rythian?” Duncan asked.  
“Yeah?” Rythian asked. He was still staring at where Zoey was buried.  
“I’m sorry for blowing all your shit up, both of the times I did it.” Duncan said, trying to ignore the fact he was about to die a horrific death.  
“Oh, um, apology accepted. And… I’m sorry that my apprentice went insane and killed us all.” Rythian said, and everyone laughed weakly.  
“You know, I always hated you guys. Until a few months ago, when we came here. You lot are alright.” Ridge said, and everyone nodded, and accepted their fate.  
They all died instantly.  
Except poor old Ridge.  
He was a Demi-God, he could survive being crushed by a little ceiling, but Zoey’s lair had sapped him of all his energy some how, and now he was slowly bleeding to death, unable to move.  
He thought about how he’d lost everything, his home, his friends, all because Simon had a badly thought through plan and Zoey turned out to be madder than a box of frogs. He put his hand on the file of pictures, and thought about the group photo he had of them all, and how ridiculous they had all looked. He smiled. Ridge died four hours later.  
And that was the end of that.  
Or, was it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the end!  
> Wait, that's a lie. There is one more chapter I wrote, and I think you'll enjoy it...  
> That sounded really sinister, I'm sorry!


	18. Captain?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years later, two explorers find the tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter! I really appreciate the support I've gotten from all of you lovely people!  
> Thank you for reading, and Children of the Full Moon continues tomorrow!

“Captain? I’ve found another building. It looks… different to the others.” Commander Saberial said over the radio.  
“Awesome, I’ll be at your location in two minutes.” Captain Proasheck replied.  
A minute and a half later, Captain Proasheck was looking up at a tall, old marble building, which was slowly falling apart. There was an old barn and some animal pens off to the side, but they looked like they hadn’t been used in decades.  
“Whoa, this is pretty cool. It’s way bigger than all the other places, what do you think it is, or was?” She asked.  
“I don’t know; I haven’t been in there yet. I bet it’s even cooler on the inside though. Shall we have a look?” Commander Saberial asked, taking the Captain’s hand.  
“Yeah, let’s go!” Captain Proasheck said, and they walked in through the front doors together together.  
The inside was in no better repair than the outside. There was rubble and broken glass all over the floor, and, by the looks of it, the elevator and stairs were completely unusable. There were two doors on opposite walls. Both of them were closed.  
“I still have no idea what this building is.” Commander Saberial said.  
“Maybe it was some kind of hospital-y place? Or a community centre?” Captain Proasheck suggested. She let go of Commander Saberial’s hand and walked over to one of the doors. She tried it, but it was locked, so she walked over to the other door and tried to open it. It moved a little bit, but not enough for them to get through.  
“Hey babe, give me a hand with this.” Captain Proasheck requested. Commander Saberial helped push the door open and found a man standing in the middle of the room, broken diamond sword pointed towards the two girls. The room was white marble like the rest of the building, and had worn sofas and broken tables littered around the place.  
“Who… Who are you? What are you doing here?” The man asked. He sounded terrified, and his arms were shaking. He had brown hair and eyes, and looked very old.  
“Hello, my name is Captain Proasheck, this is Commander Saberial. We’re from the planet Mushbury, and we’re trying to find out why there is no one living on this planet, other than you, obviously. Could you tell us? Do you know?” Captain Proasheck asked kindly.  
“I do know, but… but… Why should I tell you? You could be working with her! You… you look exactly like her!” The man said angrily. He was still pointing his sword at them.  
“Okay, calm down, we’re not working with anyone but each other. Could you tell us your name?” Commander Saberial asked.  
“D…Daltos. My name is Daltos. I used to live here, nearly everyone on the planet did.” Daltos said, lowering his sword.  
“Really? What about the other buildings?” Asked Captain Proasheck.  
“We used to live in them, but we all moved in here. Are you prepared for a very long story?” Daltos asked. The girls nodded, and they all sat down. Daltos launched into the story of Yogtowers.  
“Martyn is dead, so we come back to the tower and start moving things into the basement, but when I get to the bottom step, I trip over a tripwire or something, the basement floor opens up, and I fall for Notch knows how long before I go unconscious. I don’t remember hitting the ground, but I remember waking up in a room made of basalt, and Tee, the green dinosaur with the bow, is sleeping on the other side of the room. When he wakes up, I ask him where I am and where everyone else is, but he can’t talk so all I got was a shaken head. He gives me a diary, Zoey’s diary, I’m pretty sure, but some of the pages are ripped out. I read it and find out Tee was actually working with her, but I think he regrets it. I’m not 100% sure what exactly she did or why she did it, but it was bad. He leads me down a long corridor to a bigger room, but the ceiling has caved in. We move a lot of the rubble, and we find all the bodies and everything. It was… horrible.” Daltos finished after over a hour of story telling.  
“Well, where is the dinosaur now?” Captain Proasheck asked, unnerved that the villain in this story shared her first name and some of here features.  
“Dead, as far as I know. He went into the forest to find some animals for food, and… never came back. That was nearly two years ago now.” Daltos said sadly.  
“Are the bodies still in the secret lair?” Commander Saberial asked.  
“Yes, and they don’t decompose, like, at all. The worst one is Minty, she looks like she decomposed for a few weeks, but the others look the same as the day they died. It’s really, really creepy.” Daltos replied, shivering.  
“Can you get into the basement and down into the lair?” asked Captain Proasheck. She wanted to see this Zoey’s body, to prove to herself that it wasn’t her.  
“Yeah, I can take you down there if you want, I keep the door locked so no monsters get in. Or out.” Daltos added quickly before standing up and walking out of the room. The girls followed him. He unlocked the door with a small silver key, and started walking down an old set of stone stairs, which were surprisingly clean and well-kempt. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, just above the ladder, Daltos gave the girls a warning.  
“Look, are you sure you want to go down here, it’s a long way down, and… I don’t like looking at them. It makes me feel… gross. They were my friends, once.” He said, glancing down into the still open pit. “I have some pictures of them, if you want to look at those. Ridge, the Demi-God guy, had a whole file of pictures with him when the ceiling collapsed. I’m not sure why.”  
“Yeah, I guess we could do that. I’m not really a fan of heights either.” Commander Saberial said, peeking down the pit before turning away and heading back to the room they’d found Daltos in. Captain Proasheck was disappointed, as she wanted to investigate the secret lair, because secret lairs were usually really cool. They sat back down in the common room and Daltos handed them the old, tattered file. Inside the file was various pictures of different people described in the story Daltos had told them. There was a very sweet picture of two blonde-haired children, one male and one female, sitting in a small garden, covered in mud and smiling. One was of a brown haired boy and a blonde haired boy with a green headband surrounded by various plants. There was one of a group of men, sitting by a pool and drinking. One of them appeared to be part panda. There were three pictures of various people drenched in water with an upturned bucket next to them. There was a group photo, with everyone who had lived in the tower.  
The final picture in the file was taken in front of a large black castle. A brown haired man with a tuft of blonde and a purple scarf over his face had his arm around a shorter red-headed girl, who was smiling. A green dinosaur was stood next to the girl, holding a bow.  
“Hey, she looks like you!” exclaimed Commander Saberial, pointing to the girl. Daltos nodded.  
“That’s Zoey, the one that went insane and killed everyone. She was crushed down in the secret lair when the ceiling caved in. That’s Rythian, the guy next to her. He was weird, dead set on revenge after Duncan blew him and Zoey up.”  
Captain Zoey wasn’t listening. She was confused. This was impossible!  
How on earth did the clone get out?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, a sequel-type-thing is in the works, but I doubt that will happen for quite a while.  
> As always, thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! The chapters will be longer from now on, this is just a short one to see what you lovely people think!  
> I'll try and reply to any comments I get as soon as possible.


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